HEARINGS BEFORE COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE. li 
Section 3 provides: 
That it shall be the duty of the Secretary of Agriculture to prepare such rules and 
regulations as he may deem advisable in furtherance of this act, and to certify them 
to the executive authority of each State and Territory in the threatened region, and 
invite cooperation in the execution of the purposes of this act. 
That is practically a copy of a section of the bill creating the Bureau 
of Animal Industry, having largely a similar purpose. For instance, 
we can not know, and human foresight can not determine, just how or 
to what extent the boll weevil may cross the Louisiana line and appear 
in the cotton fields of western Louisiana. If, when it does cross, as 
the Secretary and everybody else believes it will, it should appear at 
the time practical and feasible for the Secretary of Agriculture to coop- 
erate with the State of Louisiana—which has now, by the way, I will 
pause and digress to say, a special session of the legislature going on, 
called by Governor Heard some ten days ago to take action on this 
matter, so as to create there a commission and invest them with power 
to condemn and to stamp out any sporadic appearance of the weevil— 
or with the State of Arkansas, or with the Indian Territory, or with 
the State, even, of Mississippi subsequently, in an effort to prevent the 
spread of this weevil into adjacent States and Territories, he ought to 
have power in the bill to act in that matter as in the other matter; and 
this section is necessary for that purpose and involves the same phrase- 
ology and the same purpose as the act that created the Bureau of Ani- 
mal Industry, which provided, as this does, that he could adopt rules 
and regulations and certify them to the authorities in the State or Ter- 
ritory, so as to invite and induce cooperation to meet completely, in 
the best and most practical, feasible way, whatever might arise in the 
future. 
There seems to be no doubt on the part of any of the thoughtful 
men who have looked into the matter that the danger for the future is 
not only to Texas by an increased spreading and an increased devasta- 
tion, but the danger is that they will rapidly spread across Louisiana 
and Mississippi and into Arkansas and the rest of the cotton States, 
and that will mean ruin to us, not only temporarily, but while it may 
appear far-fetched to some gentlemen, the most potent thing to my 
mind in this whole matter is that already the increased price of cotton 
by the biggest bull that has ever operated in the cotton field, the boll 
weevil, has given an impetus never before given to competitive cotton 
growing by European nations, and if high prices continue by reason 
of the further spread and devastation of the boll weevil, we will be 
seriously threatened by such increased competition in the Indies and 
Africa and other countries under the care and guidance of European 
nations, as that our present cotton supremacy may be absolutely 
ruined. The great advantage we now have grows out of the fact not 
only of geographic position and cultivation and favorable climate and 
all that, but in addition to that we have a monopoly. If you will 
pardon the recent controversial expression, which will fasten the idea 
into your minds, we have, so to speak, a preferential of 2 cents a 
pound on cotton by reason of our having a monopoly of the by- 
products of cotton seed, cotton-seed oil, and cotton-seed cake, which 
absolutely control in the United States. We made last year more 
than $60,000,000 worth of products from the cotton seed, and paid to 
the planters $45,000,000 for the seed. 
