4 HEARINGS BEFORE COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE. 
threatens them by the Mexican boll weevil, and of the methods we 
suggest for relief, and which we ask the Secretary of Agriculture to 
recommend to Congress. I will not read all of that, although I would 
be very much pleased if each member of the committee would take the 
trouble to read the whole statement, because he will find some very 
interesting and instructive data therein. 
Mr. Scorr. Will you give that reference again? 
Mr. Burexss. Yes, sir; it is inthe Congressional Record of Novem- 
ber 24, on page 329. 
The petition is as follows: 
The statement is as follows: 
To the SzcrEraRy or AGRICULTURE: 
We, the undersigned Representatives of the States of Texas and Louisiana in the 
Fifty-eighth Congress, respectfully present to the Secretary of Agriculture that the 
supremacy of the cotton industries of the United States is imperiled by the ravages 
of the boll weevil in Texas, which State produces about one-third of the total annual 
cotton crop of the United States; and we respectfully represent that the magnitude 
of the interests involved and the threatened spread of the pests through all of the 
cotton-growing States makes the question one proper to be legislated upon by the 
Federal Congress. 
The present distinguished Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, in a 
speech delivered in Boston on the 29th of last October, stated: ‘‘We grow three- 
fourths of the cotton fiber of the world. We export two-thirds of what we grow. 
That leaves for consumption one-fourth of all the cotton of the world. From this 
we export alittle over $30,000,000 worth and import about $40,000,000 worth of man- 
ufactured cotton.’’ An average cotton crop of the United States is about 10,000,000 
bales, which at 10 cents a pound (which is less than the present price) amounts to 
$500,000,000, two-thirds of which, as we export that amount, brings from Europe and 
pours into the channel of American commerce $333,000,000 annually. 
From the Abstract of the Twelfth Census it appears that in 1900 there was 
invested in cotton compressing, cotton ginning, and the manufacture of cotton goods, 
$498,000,000. There were $88,000,000 paid out by these industries in wages to 
employees, and the value of the products produced was $356,000,000. In addition, 
there was invested, in 1900, in the cotton-seed oil and cotton-seed cake industries 
$34,000,000, paying three and one-quarter million in wages, and paying $45,000,000 
for material, and producing products to the value of $58,000,000. This isa marvelous 
growth since 1880, when only $7,000,000 worth of cotton-seed products were pro- 
duced in the United States. This cotton-seed industry is of the greatest importance, 
because it aids us in maintaining our cotton supremacy in that it adds to the value of 
the farmers’ products from 1 to 2 cents per pound in the ptice of the lint cotton— 
that is to say, that a bale of cotton, now sold for 8 cents, would bring the farmer as 
much money as the same bale would have brought at 93 or 10 cents per pound prior 
to the present disposition of the seed, and this is one of the distinct advantages which 
we possess over the European countries now attempting competitive cotton growing. 
All of this is intensified in value by a future prospect in the markets in the Orient, 
superinduced by an increased prospect of an early construction of the isthmian canal. 
The manufacture of cotton goods is about equally divided between the South and 
the East, while the cotton-seed oil and the cotton-seed cake industries are almost 
entirely with the South. The foregoing facts give a fair view of the magnitude of 
the interests involved. Now Texas produces, as we have said, about one-third of the 
cotton upon which all of these great industries rest. The boll weevil first appeared 
in the southwestern part of the State of Texas, coming from Mexico, and in a few 
years has spread in a northeasterly direction practically to the Louisiana line, a dis- 
tance of perhaps 700 miles. If this advance of the weevil continues, but a few years 
will suffice to carry it across the States of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and 
Georgia and into the most northeasterly cotton-producing States of the Union. It is 
quite difficult to estimate the exact extent of the injury or the financial loss sustained 
in Texas this year by the cotton growers. The expert of the Agricultural Depart- 
ment, Mr. Hunter, some time since very conservatively estimated that it would not 
be less than $15,000,000. 
The judgment of those of us whose names are signed hereto, and who reside in the 
infected districts in Texas, is that this year’s loss will amount to not less than 
$35,000,000, and may possibly be as much as $50,000,000. This involves not only a 
