608 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE. 



permit any radical steps which may be necessary to exterminate any 

 outbreak which may result from such planting. 



INSPECTION ACTIVITIES DUKING THE GROWING SEASON OF 1919. 



An important feature of the work during the spring and summer of 

 1919 has been the following up of all clues of possible distribution of 

 Mexican cotton lint to mills in cotton-growing areas of the South 

 prior to the quarantine of 1916. The tracing of this cotton has 

 covered not only the original sale of such cotton but all resales and 

 also all distributions of picker waste or motes from mills in which 

 such cotton was utilized. This and similar inspection work has ex- 

 tended from the Carolinas, where several thousand bales of Mexican 

 cotton were purchased and utilized just prior to 1916, through the 

 other cotton States to Arizona, where there has been and is danger 

 of infestation by carriage of seed by Mexican laborers. The cotton 

 fields in all such districts surrounding mills or in other situations 

 where risk had been determined have been given repeated inspections 

 throughout the season. The bulk of this w^ork has naturally been in 

 Texas, where particular attention has been paid to the localities in 

 eastern Texas infested in 1916 and 1917 and in the vicinity of the 12 

 mills which received Mexican cotton seed in 1916. The Pecos Valley 

 crop of this year, and the cotton planted under State and Federal 

 control in the former quarantined districts in eastern Texas also 

 have been given frequent and intensive inspections. 



THE PINK BOLLWORM APPARENTLY EXTERMINATED. 



As a result of all this inspection activity, both as to quarantined 

 and regulated districts in Texas and' as to all other points of possible 

 infestation throughout the cotton area of the United States, no 

 evidences whatever of the pink bollworm have been determined this 

 year. This is a most encouraging result and indicates the probability 

 of a successful outcome of this tremendous effort to control an im- 

 portant foreign pest after it had become fairly widely and firmly 

 established. This outcome has been made possible by the fact that 

 the insect is substantially limited to one food plant grown under 

 cultivation and in the western districts wholly under irrigation. 

 Undoubtedly certain temperature conditions of the winter of 1918 

 and 1919 unfavorable to the insect have aided in obtaining this result. 

 One adverse feature may be noted, namely, the failure of the au- 

 thorities of the State of Texas to enforce fully the prohibition of the 

 growth of cotton this year in the Great Bend district of the Eio 

 Grande. One hundred acres of cotton were planted in this district 

 by a grower, and in spite of urgent recommendations made by this 

 department this field has been left to mature. Undoubtedly this 

 crop can be safeguarded, but it will make more difficult the enforce- 

 ment of noncotton zones in the future. 



USE OF AEROPLANE IN SURVEY WORK. 



That it is possible to use the aeroplane in a practical way in the 

 cotton survey work, and particularly for the location of cotton fields 

 which might otherwise escape detection, was demonstrated during 



