BUREAU OF ENTOMOLOGY AND PLANT QUARANTINE 13 
About 250 acres were designated as a noncotton zone in Vermilion 
Parish, Louisiana. Reimbursement costs for compliance with the 
nonproduction of cotton regulations were shared equally by the State 
of Louisiana and the Bureau. 
Cooperative pink bollworm control work in Mexico 
Cooperative pink bollworm control work with Mexico continued 
during the year. Quarantine and cultural practices similar to those 
in adjacent areas in the United States were successfully carried out 
in the States of Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon, and Coahuila. In this 
area of Mexico about 1,300,000 acres of cotton were planted, but 
production was reduced to 291,000 bales by drought and heavy insect 
damage. This area operates 129 gins, 10 oil mills, and 4 compresses. 
Technical assistance in pink bollworm control and quarantine meas- 
ures was given in the Laguna and Delicias areas of the State of 
Chihuahua, where 107 gins processed 330,000 bales of cotton. 
Stalk destruction dates were the same as in adjacent areas of Texas. 
A generally satisfactory cleanup was obtained. 
Wild cotton eradication in Florida 
More then 25,000 acres in southern Florida were worked one or more 
times to remove colonies of wild cotton plants that are host of the 
pink bollworm. About 75,000 of these plants were thus destroyed. 
More than 3 percent of them had fruited. Matured fruits were col- 
lected and burned. 
Examination of 21,740 bolls, blooms, and squares from wild cotton 
plants resulted in the collection of 61 pink bollworms. Infestations 
were found at Cape Sable and on the Main Keys between the mainland 
and Key West. Examination of 6,131 bolls, blooms, and squares 
collected from dooryard plants, which are grown as ornamentals, dis- 
closed 610 pink bollworms. All these specimens were found on a 
single property in Monroe County. 
Improved stalk shredders kill more pink bollworms 
Studies of various types of stalk cutters have shown that the new 
shredder machines cut the stalks into finer pieces and that more pink 
bollworm larvae are killed during the cutting operation than with the 
conventional roller cutter. These new machines also spread the crop 
debris more evenly over the soil, exposing the larvae to the hot sun 
where man} more of them are killed. They also permit better coverage 
in plowing. 
Pink bollworm able to overwinter within present range of infestation 
Hibernation cages installed in the fall of 1952 showed that pink 
bollworms survived the winter of 1952-53 under field conditions in 
southwestern Oklahoma, in northern and northwestern Texas, and 
in other areas of Texas where studies were made. By July 4, 1953, the 
total moth emergence from 80 cages containing 240 pounds of heavily 
infested bolls at each location was as follows: Brownsville 22, Port 
Lavaca 295, Waco 3,684, Greenville 1,960, Vernon 494, and Lubbock 
92, all in Texas, and Chickasha, Okla., 1,051. 
Ginning and oil-mill delinting destroy high percentages of pink 
bollworms 
Preliminary small-scale experiments in northwestern Texas early 
in 1953 showed that high percentages of pink bollworms in seed cotton 
