﻿4 BULLETIN 1397, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



Government of Brazil imported 9 tons of Egyptian cottonseed. This 

 seed was not fumigated, as it was not suspected that any injurious 

 insect was likely to be carried by it. A test for germination showed 

 89 per cent viable. It is altogether probable that a large percentage 

 of the unviable seeds were those attacked by the pink bollworm. 

 All of this seed was sent to agricultural inspectors in various States 

 and by them was distributed further throughout the cotton-growing 

 districts. There can be no doubt that the general establishment of 

 the pink bollworm in Brazil was due to the importation of the 

 Egyptian seed, and that incalculable losses to the country could have 

 been avoided if proper quarantine precautions had been taken. 



In 1911 two importations of Egyptian seed were brought into 

 Mexico ; one, of 25 sacks, was planted near Monterey, and the other, 

 of 6 tons, in the vicinity of San Pedro, in the Laguna district. From 

 what is known of the prevalence of the pink bollworm in Egypt in 

 1911 it is probable that both shipments of seed were infested and 

 that both of them contributed to the present infestation in Mexico. 

 It is true that cotton culture has not been continued in the vicinity 

 of Monterey, but the crop of Egyptian cotton produced there in 1911 

 attracted considerable attention and much of the seed was shipped to 

 the Laguna district. 



In 1917, specimens of the pink bollworm, collected by H. H. 

 Jobson, were received from China. Following is a quotation from 

 Jobson's notes: 



The collection which I have was secured from the seed room of one of the 

 ginneries in Shanghai and from the fields at Tungchow, about 12 hours' ride 

 by boat up the river from Shanghai. The infestation is more or less gen- 

 eral throughout China ; however, there may be some small areas where it is 

 not present. A majority of the cotton grown within a radius of 100 miles 

 of Shanghai is shipped into that port before being ginned, and from evidences 

 found at the ginning establishments there is no doubt but what all those 

 regions are infested. In fact, the larvae are so numerous that by going into 

 the seed room of the gins a person may secure any number of them within 

 a very short time, as they may be seen crawling around over the seed and 

 on the walls. 



The infestation in Australia was first reported in 1923, from 

 Queensland, and appears to have resulted from the carriage of cot- 

 tonseed by soldiers returning from Europe to Australia, who stopped 

 at Alexandria, Egypt. 



The infestation in the West Indies was apparently caused by a 

 small shipment of cottonseed imported fi'om Hawaii in 1911 to be 

 used on the island of St. Croix for experimental purposes. 



PRESENT DISTRIBUTION IN MEXICO 



As far as is shown by absolutely definite evidence, the pink boll- 

 worm in Mexico is confined to localities in the northern part of 

 that country, one of them being the Laguna district, a valley isolated 

 by mountain ranges about 200 miles from the Texas border. The 

 Laguna, in which the greater part of the Mexican cotton crop is 

 produced, consists of about 1,200 square miles of tillable land. 

 Other localities known to be infested in Mexico (fig. 11, p. 26) are 

 Allende (about 40 miles south of Eagle Pass), the Trevino Ranch 

 (immediately opposite Del Rio), Santa Rosalia (in Chihuahua), 

 Monclova, the Juarez Valley, and the area in Chihuahua opposite 



