176 
COTTON 
and 1865 its ravages, gradually increasing, forced 
the farmers finally to abandon the culture of cotton. 
Cotton was not grown then for a great many years 
until it was thought safe to make another effort. 
But scarcely had operations begun anew before 
there appeared the ancient foe — hidden up to that 
time, of course, but where no one knows — and de- 
stroyed the crop. Twenty years later the insect 
was noticed at Matamoras, carrying on the same 
destructive work; but it stopped not here. In ten 
years it reached the Rio Grande. Checked for 
a moment, but not baffled, it goes on, continuing 
in its attempt to cross the river, which it succeeds 
in doing within a year or two. Once across, more 
bold now, it makes its campaign with quickness 
and dispatch, entrenching itself at Brownsville, 
Texas. Not waiting to subjugate completely the 
surrounding territory, it hurries on with darting 
jumps, and within a year it has fastened its hold 
upon San Diego, Alice and Beeville. This was in 
1894. The interior does not stop it; for within a 
year it goes still further to the North, doing consid- 
erable damage at Floresville, and reaching even 
San Antonio. Likewise it pushes to the East and 
to the Gulf, reaching Victoria, Cuero, and sends 
its scouts to Wharton also. The last ten years 
has been a period of entrenchment and invasion 
to a peculiar degree. Practically all of the cotton- 
growing territory of Texas is now invaded ; and the 
weevil has crossed into Louisiana, and has even 
threatened Indian Territory. 
Its ravages have been great, and for the last 
four years the annual amount lost to the cotton 
growers of Texas has been approximately twenty- 
five millions of dollars. Including the loss to 
ginners, manufacturers, and other allied industries, 
