COTTON ONCE GREW ON TREES 
see if the crop would pay better if it was cultivated in 
orchards that lived through the decades. It looked for a 
while as though it would work out that way. Then insect 
pests got among the trees and spoiled them. It was the 
insects, not the nature of the cotton tree, that spoiled this 
scheme for farming the crop. 
The cotton tree as it first grew is still to be found in 
Peru. It is to be found also in Mexico. It was in these 
wild cotton trees of Mexico that the boll weevil lived 
through the centuries and got the habit of raising its 
young in cotton balls. 
When it got into cultivated cotton fields, it found con¬ 
ditions much more favorable to its increase and so swept 
on and on across the cotton states, doing great damage. 
5 
