340 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



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ILLUSTRATION SHOWING A COTTON FIELD PLANTED LATE AND YIELDING NOTHING, 



BECAUSE OE THE RAVAGES OE THE BOLL WEEVIL 



The cotton-boll weevil, an immigrant from Mexico, first invaded Texas and is now 

 extending eastward as far as Louisiana and Mississippi. It causes a loss of cotton to the 

 value of more than 20 million dollars every year. The plants are healthy, but have no bolls 

 or cotton ; the weevil has taken it all. The field shown in the illustration on the next page 

 contains a normal cotton crop ready for harvest. This field has been protected from the 

 boll weevil by methods determined by the work of the Bureau of Entomology, U. S. De- 

 partment of Agriculture. 



face, neck, or hands from an infested 

 tree, but also from the myriads of hairs 

 which are shed by these caterpillars when 

 they transform to the chrysalis state. 

 The hairs are carried about by winds 

 and find lodgment on clothing, or collect 

 on one's face, neck, or hands, and fre- 

 quently cause very disagreeable and ex- 

 tensive nettling, the effect of which 

 may last for months. Breathed into the 

 lungs, they may cause inflammation and 

 become productive of tuberculosis. 



The brown-tail rash is well known 

 throughout the regions infested in New 

 England, and thousands have suffered 

 from it. All of the assistants who have 

 been connected with the government 

 work in the New England States with 



these pests have been seriously poisoned, 

 and two of them have had to give up 

 their work and go to the Southwest to 

 attempt to recover from the pulmonary 

 troubles superinduced by the irritating 

 hairs of the brown-tail moth. 



This insect is therefore a most unde- 

 sirable neighbor, even if it were not re- 

 sponsible for great injury to orchards 

 and ornamental trees. When it is real- 

 ized that the brown-tail moth has already 

 been distributed on imported nursery 

 stock throughout 22 States during the 

 last two years, the danger to the whole 

 country is sufficiently apparent. 



In view of this special danger — which 

 after all is only a continuation of the 

 dangers and experiences to which this 



