LOUISIANA CIRCULAR No. 5. 17 



meteorological conditions, in combination with the early fall de- 

 struction of the plants, would bring about a complete extermina- 

 tion of the boll weevil. The experiment made by the Commis- 

 sion, referred to in Circular No. 3, in which boll weevils were 

 taken Oct. 16, 1905, from a cotton field in DeSoto Parish and 

 kept under outdoor conditions, but without being given any 

 squares, leaves or bolls to feed upon, points very strongly towards 

 the possibility of such an extermination. Although the weevils in 

 this experiment were furnished with all the water they desired, 

 all of them died before Nov. 28th, and yet in the same locality the 

 weevils in the fields, with food, showed no tendency whatever to 

 seek hibernating quarters before Dec. 8th. 



The writer fully believes that had all the cotton plants in 

 DeSoto Parish been destroyed by Oct. 16, the first day of Janu- 

 ary (1906) would not have seen a single living boll weevil in that 

 Parish. The very least that can be said is that, where the plants 

 were allowed to stand until heavy frost, there will be at least a 

 thousand weevils next spring to attack the young cotton when 1 

 there would be but one had the plants all been destroyed by the 

 middle of October, or even as late as the middle of November. 

 Even if the fall destruction of the cotton plants did not 

 directly result in the production of a single pound more of lint 

 the following season, it would abundantly pay the farmer to de- 

 stroy every cotton plant, early every fall for ten years, in order 

 to secure the enormous benefits following the season in which by 

 the coincident effect of a "late fall" and a severe, wet winter, 

 combined with the effect of the early fall destruction of the cot- 

 ton plants by the farmer, the weevils would be completely exter- 

 minated. 



Ml. THE INDIRECT METHOD OF REDUCING BOLL 



WEEVIL DAMAGE. 



That the boll weevil has no food-plant other than cotton has 

 been firmly established. The farmer who produces crops other 

 than cotton has nothing to fear from boll weevil ravages, but un- 

 f.Ttunately he finds other insect enemies threatening his succes 

 regardless of what crop he may undertake to substitute for 

 cotton. The Crop Pest Commission does not overlook the fact 

 that we are to continue in the future, as in the past, to produce 

 cotton, but under the present labor and credit systems which pre- 



