WORK OF LOUISIANA CROP PEST COMMISSION. 125 



The materials mentioned are those which experience has shown to 

 be such as are most likely to contain living boll weevils, and the 

 shipment of which to uninfested sections might therefore result in 

 new infestations many miles ahead of the gradually advancing line 

 of weevil infestation. Of the materials named, only one, cotton-seed 

 hulls, is ever permitted to be shipped into the uninfested territory 

 under any circumstances. The commission has perfected a method 

 by which cotton-seed oil mills can so arrange their machinery as to 

 handle the hulls after they leave the huller in a manner that will 

 effectually prevent the dissemination of boll weevils with them ; and 

 to mills having a satisfactory arrangement of their machinery, as 

 required by the commission, permits are given for the shipment of 

 cotton-seed hulls to any point in the noninfested sections. 



The commission is frequently confronted with the question : " So 

 long as the boll weevil's progress by migratory flights can not be 

 controlled, what is the use of trying to maintain a quarantine upon 

 shipments likely to disseminate the weevil? " To any thinking man 

 who will note the progress made by the weevil each year in its migra- 

 tions and the loss of territory which the pest experienced last winter, 

 the answer must be evident. Even though the insect is each year 

 gaining additional territory, and even though ultimate infestation of 

 the major portion of the cotton belt appears inevitable, much is to 

 be gained by preventing the pest from obtaining a foothold many 

 miles ahead of the gradually advancing frontier of infestation. For 

 example, if infestations now occurred in the north central portion 

 of Louisiana and at points along the Mississippi River, as well as 

 in that portion of the State east of the river, it is evident that the 

 entire State would become infested much sooner than if all such out- 

 breaks were prevented and the weevil forced to limit its progress 

 into new territory to actual bodily movement. Even if the advance 

 of the pest can not be permanently prevented, there is certainly no 

 justification for permitting it to be accelerated. To abandon quar- 

 antine measures simply because the weevil gains new territory each 

 year by flight, would be analogous to the case of a large city in 

 which a conflagration occurs, spreading gradually, and in which on 

 that account the authorities permit other fires to be started in other 

 portions of the city, each of which in turn would itself become a 

 conflagration involving a large area. 



It is pleasing to note that not a single case of infestation by the boll 

 weevil is known to occur at any point east of the territory which has 

 been occupied by the weevil in its migrations, the eastern limit of 

 which is virtually coincident with the quarantine line established by 

 the commission, and we have therefore every reason to believe that 

 this quarantine has been entirely successful, and has thereby saved not 

 only eastern Louisiana but States east of us from infestation through 



