BUREAU OF ENTOMOLOGY AND PLANT QUARANTINE 11 
Council. The council's estimate is based on final crop-production 
figures of the Bureau of Agricultural Economics. Similar estimates 
were $391,955,000 for 1951, and $907,884,000 for 1950. The council 
also estimated that during 1952 in the 16 major cotton-producing 
States the boll weevil, the pink bollworm, and other pests destroyed 
927,000 bales of cotton and 574,300 tons of cottonseed. 
One cooperative gin at Rio Hondo, Tex., reported that more than 
10,000 bales were ginned there in 1951, but less than 2,000 bales were 
brought to the gin in 1952. Seventy-five percent of this reduction was 
attributed to insect damage. Three hundred members of the coopera- 
tive plowed under several hundred acres of cotton that had not been 
picked because of insect damage. 
A farmer near Harlingen, Tex., said that he had never seen the pink 
bollworm as bad as it was in 1952, although he had been growing cot- 
ton all his life. He said some of his neighbors had practically their 
entire cotton crop destroyed by this insect. Some of the farmers who 
did pick their cotton got only 20 cents a pound, which was about two- 
thirds of the market value of undamaged cotton, because it was short 
staple and of low grade due to pink bollworm damage. 
Pink Bollworm Research and Control Activities 
Pink bollworm research activities greatly expanded 
Pink bollworm investigations were greatly expanded during the 
year. Several new lines of investigation were tentatively set up, 
although work on some of them cannot be started until additional 
personnel and facilities are obtained. 
Construction of a new pink bollworm research center was started 
during the fiscal year at Brownsville, Tex. The Texas Southmost 
College is building a $73,000, 25-room office-laboratory which the Bu- 
reau has leased with the privilege of renewal for 20 years. This build- 
ing will house a chemical laboratory, a parasite-rearing laboratory, a 
laboratory for the study of bacterial, fungus, virus, and other diseases 
of the pink bollworm, and an insect physiology laboratory. A sepa- 
rate building houses the toxicology laboratory where intensive studies 
are being made of conventional and systemic insecticides against the 
pink bollworm. A half-acre cage, completely screened on the top 
and sides, is also being built. Heavy concentrations of insects on 
growing cotton can be maintained in this cage throughout most of 
the year. A greenhouse in which cotton may be grown the year 
round is planned for early construction. Plans are being made to 
house in a separate building at the laboratory site five bioclimatic 
cabinets for pink bollworm and Mexican fruitfly research. A sub- 
laboratory is being established at Lubbock, Tex. 
Most pink bollworm research activities were conducted in the L ower 
Rio Grande Valley and in the Coastal Bend area of Texas in coopera- 
tion with the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station, the Bureau 
of Plant Industry, Soils, and Agricultural Engineering, and the 
National Cotton Council of America. The latter agency, through 
the Oscar Johnston Cotton Foundation, appropriated the sum of 
$50,000 to be used in support of this research. 
