25 



above-mentioned States would be a most conservative estimate. For 

 the purposes of the present computation, boUworm injury in the 

 States of Alabama, Georgia, Florida, the Carolinas, and the other 

 cotton-growing States not mentioned may be ignored as of little 

 importance. 



The total value of cotton fiber and seed for the States of Texas, 

 Louisiana, Mississippi, Indian Territory, Oklahoma, and Arkansas for 

 1899 is given by the Twelfth Census as $213,695,256. Four per cent 

 of this amount is $8,547,810, the approximate annual tax of the boll- 

 worm on the cotton planters of these States. 



INJURY TO TOMATOES. 



Bollworm injury to tomatoes is variable and hard to more than 

 approximately estimate. Injury by the first and second generations of 

 larvae is probably most severe, but reports of depredations in the late 

 summer and fall are not wanting. The destruction of the early fruit 

 augments the loss. In the commercial tomato-growing regions of the 

 South, especially in Florida, Mississippi, and eastern Texas, complaints 

 of severe injury are frequent; likewise in Maryland, New Jersey, 

 Delaware, and other States, where large quantities of tomatoes are 

 grown for canning purposes, the average annual injur}^ is doubtless 

 quite important. A possible basis for an estimate of loss to tomato 

 growers by the bollworm is to be found in the statistics of the pack 

 of this vegetable in the United States for 1900, which are given by the 

 Twelfth Census as 5,495,093 cases of twenty -four 3-pound cans each. 

 At the niinimum valuation of 11.46 per case, the crop in 1900 was worth 

 $8,022,835. Placing the average annual loss to this crop by the boll- 

 worm in the United States at 2 per cent,- which is undoubtedly a very 

 conservative estimate, the amount is |160,456. 



Bringing together the losses to the afore-mentioned crops, there is 

 shown a total of $27,129,119 as the 3^early tax of this species on growers 

 of corn, cotton, and tomatoes in the United States. 



The extent of losses to various other crops, such as tobacco, alfalfa, 

 cowpeas, various garden vegetables, and others, would increase this 

 amount somewhat, and the sum total of losses from its depredations in 

 this and foreign countries would be an amount sufficient to easily place 

 the bollworm amongst the foremost injurious species of the world. 



DISTRIBUTION AND DESTRUCTIVENESS IN RELATION TO LIFE 



ZONES. 



With the probable exception of the Boreal, the cotton bollworm is 

 known to occur in all of the life zones of North America, as mapped 

 out by Doctor Merriam (PI. II), namely, the Transition, Upper Aus- 

 tral, Lower Austral, and Tropical. 



