COTTON OR BOLL WEEVILS 9 



HOW TO FIGHT THE BOLL WEEVIL 



There is no question but that the boll weevil does an immense 

 amount of damage to cotton. How can cotton be protected from 

 these pests? What is the best and easiest way to get rid of these 

 weevils? Men have been trying for years to answer these questions. 

 Some of these men have come to the conclusion that the boll weevil 

 cannot be gotten rid of. but that it can be controlled sufficiently to 

 permit good crops of cotton to be raised. This is a big help even if 

 every weevil cannot be destroyed. It is best to learn what these 

 men' advise and to follow their directions. 



Nature cannot be depended on to do all the controlling, because 

 exactly what the weather will be during the cotton-growing season is 

 never known. It is not at all certain that the summer will be hot 

 and dry. and so man has tried hard to find something that would 

 help him to protect the cotton. In all the years since the people of 

 the Cotton Belt began to realize how much damage the boll weevil 

 could do, they have tried to find some way of killing this pest. Every 

 kind of machine or poison that could be thought of has been tried. 

 Finally, in 1908 and 1909 agents of the Louisiana Crop Pest Com- 

 mission tried lead arsenate in dust form with very promising results. 

 However, no general use of this dust for boll weevil control followed. 



In 1914 field agents of the Bureau of Entomology, of the Lmited 

 States Department of Agriculture, began experimenting with a white, 

 powdery poison known as calcium arsenate, or arsenate of lime. 

 This they dusted evenly on the cotton plants during the early morning 

 while dew was still on the leaves and squares. 



Now the weevil grubs that were feeding inside the squares or bolls 

 could not be reached by the poisonous calcium arsenate. But the 

 full-grown weevils crawling over the plant looking for places to feed 

 and lay their eggs were poisoned in the following three ways: (1) 

 While crawling around, the weevils continually touched the tips of 

 their snouts to the plant. Because their tiny jaws were moist, the 

 small particles of calcium arsenate stuck to them and were swallowed. 

 (2) The weevils drank the dew that had been poisoned, and (3) they 

 ate particles of calcium arsenate when they fed on the dusted plants. 



The field agents were encouraged by these results and a few days 

 later they dusted the plants again. They found that more weevils 

 had died, and so they felt that they were on the right track in destroy- 

 ing the insects. They dusted the plants a third time and then found 

 that there were many more blooms in the field than when dusting was 

 started. This meant that the weevils were being killed off faster 

 than they could damage the new blooms by laving eggs in the squares. 



The agents felt then that they had at last found something which 

 would protect the cotton from too great damage. They thought that 

 if the weevils did not become too numerous later a good crop of cotton 

 would be produced. The field was carefully watched throughout the 

 summer, and, whenever weevils appeared to be getting thick again, 

 another dusting of calcium arsenate was made. When fall came there 

 was a good crop of cotton, while in a field across the road, which had 

 not been dusted, there was hardly any cotton. 



For several years after this first experiment Government workers 

 tested this way of controlling the boll weevil to be sure that they were 



