REPRESSION. ( 157 



the weevil successfully. This opposition would undoubtedly be 

 sufficiently strong to prevent cooperation in a large territory. More- 

 over, the expense would be enormous. A large army of inspectors 

 would be required. The work would not end with the prevention 

 of planting cotton, but would necessarily extend to the destruction 

 of volunteer plants which would be found along roads, railroads, 

 about gins and oil mills, and on plantations throughout the infested 

 region. The loss to mills, railroads, merchants, banks, and others 

 dependent upon the cotton trade would complicate matters further. 

 Unless a plan of reimbursement were followed there would be stren- 

 uous opposition from these quarters, and any scheme of payment for 

 damages would increase the cost still further. From a theoretical 

 standpoint all the expenses involved would be justified. The saving 

 in a few years would more than offset the cost. Nevertheless, the 

 practical difficulties undoubtedly will always prevent the execution 

 of the plan. All interests now seem to favor the necessary adjust- 

 ment of conditions to the boll weevil rather than total eradication — 

 once practicable but now little more than visionary. 



Under the discussion of the hibernation of the weevil it was shown 

 that during the several years in winch careful experiments have been 

 performed the average rate of survival was 7.6 per cent. It is note- 

 worthy that frequently the survival is much smaller. In the ex- 

 periments to which reference has been made it ranged from 0.5 per 

 cent to 20 per cent. The most important means of controlling the 

 boll weevil that are available are designed to increase the tremendous 

 mortality caused by natural conditions during the winter. The 

 destruction of any certain number of weevils during the winter is 

 much more important than the destruction of much larger numbers at 

 any other season. The best means at the command of the farmer for 

 increasing the winter mortality is through the uprooting and burning 

 or burial of the stalks at an early date in the fall. (See PI. XX, a.) 

 Numerous experiments have shown the lessened mortality due to 

 depriving the weevils of their food at early dates in the autumn. In 

 fact, the experiments showed a practically uniform increase in the 

 number of weevils surviving as the dates of the destruction of the 

 plants became later. For instance, in all of the experiments per- 

 formed in Texas it was found that destruction in September re- 

 sulted in a survival of only 0.2 per cent; destruction two weeks later 

 showed a survival of 2.3 per cent; destruction during the last half of 

 October, 5.6 per cent; and during the first half of November, 15.4 

 per cent. The results of the Louisiana experiments were similar. 

 Destruction in September showed a survival of 0.3 per cent; destruc- 

 tion in the first half of October, 2 per cent; in the last half of October, 

 8 per cent. 



In addition to the experiments in which the weevils have been 

 placed in cages at different times in the fall, the Bureau of Ento- 

 mology has conducted considerable field work to show the benefits 

 of fall destruction. The most striking experiment was performed 

 at Calhoun County, Tex., in 1906. In this experiment an isolated 

 area of over 400 acres of cotton was utilized. There was no other 

 cotton within a distance of 15 miles. By contracts entered into by 

 the department, the farmers uprooted and burned all of the stalks 

 during the first 10 days in October, and provision was made to prevent 



