4] 
sion and broad-minded treatment. Here we have insects which the 
infested States fail to control, either through inability or neglect, and 
they spread beyond their boundaries. Quarantines against them are 
comparatively useless unless the insects are controlled in the badly 
infested region. The National Government makes appropriations 
partly to aid in study of the pests for the information of the inhab- 
itants of uninfested States and partly to prevent spread, but it can 
have no authority in the latter respect without State legislation. 
Undoubtedly at least one of the two moths in New England—the 
gypsy moth—might be controlled were the States infested willing to 
spend ‘sufficient money to confine it within their borders; and the 
same is largely true of the boll weevil, were it generally controlled 
by destruction of the stalks as outlined. But why should one State 
tax itself to subdue a pest which is causing it loss and others gain 
from increased prices, as in the case of the weevil, to prevent it from 
spreading to them? On the other hand, if it is possible for the State 
to do so, 1s the General Government justified in assuming the task 
if it had the authority? These are questions of a broad nature which 
it seems to the writer are rather new and which must be met sooner 
or later. In their solution an association such as this should take a 
leading part. 
Mr. Skinner remarked that certain newspapers had published a 
statement that an attempt was being made among cotton growers of 
the South to combine and destroy a portion of this year’s crop in order 
to raise the price of cotton. In view of this, might we not look upon 
the boll weevil as a beneficial insect in years like the present, when the 
crop is larger than usual? 
Mr. Hunter said that the results reached by the Department of 
Agriculture agreed fully with those presented in Mr. Sanderson’s 
paper. Climatic conditions are so important that methods that fail 
to take account of their influence are likely to give widely different 
results in different seasons. <A fairly good remedy is at hand, viz, 
the actual destruction of large numbers of the weevils in the fall; 
but the general indifference of the people to suggestions makes it 
difficult to get cooperation in this. They grasp at any possibility, such 
as the use of mineral paint, attracting to cotton-seed meal, and other 
quack nostrums which bave been shown to be of no use whatever. 
As to the suggestion that the boll weevil might be a benefit in raising 
the price of cotton, it is a fallacy to suppose that the increase in price 
was due to the boll weevil. It seems an important possibility that 
predictions of great commercial value in regard to prospective injury 
may be based on the principle suggested by Mr. Sanderson. 
