The damage to cotton caused by insects other than the boll weevil 
ranges from 1.6 to 8.9. percent in the boll weevil area and from 
2.9 to 10.1 percent in the western irrigated areas where the boll 
weevil does not oceur. These insects include the pink bollworn, 
bollworm, tobacco budworm, southern armyworm, yellow-striped army= 
worm, cotton aphid, cotton fleahopper, cotton leafworm, tarnished 
plant bug, rapid plant bug, conchuela, and several species of stink 
bugs, thrips, lygus bugs, grasshoppers, root aphids, leaf miners, 
flea bestles, darkling beetles, leaf-feeding lepidopterous larvae, 
and spider mites. 
The annual loss caused by insects other than boll weevil amounts 
to $106,071,000. To this direct loss must also be added the cost 
of control. It is customary to apply combinations of insecticides 
to control two or more cotton insects at the same time. Therefore, 
since one insecticide may control the boll weevil and several other 
insects as well, it is difficult to estimate this cost. Probably 
the cost of controlling these insects as compared to the boll weevil 
would be close to the ratio of estimated reductions in yield, or 
4.9 to 10.06. On the basis of the 1950-52 estimate of $47,138,000 
spent annually for insecticides used on cotton, this ratio would 
indicate that $31,613,885 was spent to control the boll weevil and 
$15,524,115 to control other insects. 
The anmal cost of applying insecticides to cotton for the 3-year 
period 1950-52 has been estimated at $19,897,500. This estimate 
is based on the prevailing costs of applying the insecticides by 
custom operators. Custom application is about as chgap as farmer 
application when the costs of equipment, labor, and depreciation 
are taken into consideration. 
Peanuts 
lhe southern corn rootworm annually destroys at least $2 million 
worth of field-cured peanuts grown on heavy soils in the Virginia- 
Carolina-Tennessee area. Recent use of soil insecticides to control 
the pest in Virginia has increased the yields of peanuts as much as 
hO percent and the return by an average of $50 per acre. 
The velvetbean caterpillar, frequently destructive in the South- 
eastern States, one year cost Alabama peanut growers over $2 million. 
In another year the pest practically destroyed Florida's velvetbean 
crop, and in some years it has ruined the soybean crop in Louisiana. 
Rice 
The most important pests of growing rice in the United States are 
the rice stink bug, two stalk borers, and the sugarcane beetle. The 
rice stink bug causes an annual loss of approximately $1,500,090 
and the other insects about $500,000 to rice grown in Louisiana, 
Texas, and Arkansas. Occasionally a leaf miner becomes a serious 
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