506 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



W. D. Hunter, a member of the board, and in charge of Southern 

 Field Crop Insect Investigations for the Bureau of Entomology. 

 Ihe report of last year gave a comprehensive review of the piiik 

 bollworm situation up to October, 1918. The review of the work of 

 the last fiscal year, for convenience, takes up separately, the con- 

 sideration of the conditions and crop of 1918 and of 1919, respec- 

 tively. 



INSPECTION AND CLEAN-UP ACTIVITIES WITH EESPECT TO THE CROP OF lOlS. 



* 



The principal work of last fall and winter, extending late into the 

 spring of this year, was in the nature of field inspections and clean-up 

 operations, including both the volunteer cotton in the quarantine 

 zones' and the illegally planted fields in zone No. 2. All such ille- 

 gally grown cotton was fully controlled as to the crop produced, 

 including the prompt crushing of the seed and the export to foreign 

 countries of the lint. This control was carried out under a form of 

 agreement between the State department of agriculture of Texas and 

 the planters of outlaw cotton, but the actual control was administered 

 by agents of the board. 



In the course of all this work no instance of reinfestation by the 

 pink bollworm was found in any of the old areas of invasion. 



THE PINK BOLLWOKM APPEARS IN WESTERN TEXAS. 



Late in 1918 the pink bollworm was discovered in two areas in 

 western Texas, namely, in the Great Bend of the Rio Grande River, 

 and in, the Pecos Valley in the region of Barstow, Tex. The infesta- 

 tion of these two areas evidently had a common origin, namely, from 

 seed or seed cotton smuggled across the Rio Grande River in the 

 region of the Great Bend. 



The Pecos Valley infestation was traced to some of this smuggled 

 seed cotton which had been carted from the Great Bend district to a 

 gin at Barstow, Tex. This infestation later was found to have ex- 

 tended from Barstow to the region of the town of Pecos, involving 

 seven localities, and presented a serious situation, in that the insect 

 was here brought into a district where cotton is commercially grown 

 on a fairly large scale. Fortunately the infestation was limited to 

 comparatively few fields. 



The infestation in the Great Bend of the Rio Grande was scattered 

 over a distance of 150 miles between Candelaria and Boquillas. This 

 Great Bend district is not a cotton country, and the growth of this 

 fiber is limited to a few scattered fields along the river in small valleys 

 at the base of the mountains, representing altogether only a few hun- 

 dred acres. The infestation here appears to have resulted from an 

 original infestation on the Mexican side of the river opposite Cande- 

 laria from planting seed brought by immigrant farmers from the 

 Laguna district of Mexico. Part of the spread along this district may 

 have been due to water carriage from infested fields on either side of 

 the river. 



Immediately on the discovery of these new^ points of infestation 

 active work was undertaken to exterminate the insect along the lines 

 which had been so successfully followed in eastern Texas, both with 

 respe(^t to cleaning the cotton fields and the a.feguarding of the croi3 



