THE BOLL WEEVIL

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 96, 4 February 1936, Page 8

THE BOLL WEEVIL

WORLD ENEMY NUMBER ONE. Ho first came into the public eye in Vera Cruz in 1843; 49 years later, after laying Cuba in ruins, ho crossed the Mexican border and moved steadily eastwards doing millions of pounds' worth of damage as lie Avent. The whole civilised Avorld has tried to kill him off. But he goes on triumphantly, defying poison gases and modem scientific: warfare, devastating Avliole cottongrowing States, and increasing in strength. He has uoav reached Australia, looking for fresh fields to conquer. His alias on the crime sheets is 801 l Weevil, states IT. H. Johnston in “Tit Bits.”

G. Morsitans and S. Faseiata are the Avorld’s most appalling murderers. BctAveen them they have been responsible for more than half of the human death rate. They have moAvn doAvn Avhoie armies, Aviped out empires and ervilisations, and caused untold damage. In one year alone—in 1921 — they killed 1,600,000 people in India. Of course, you ask: Why let this terror go on? Can’t something be done about it? The truth is that if Ave spend as much money and ingenuity on Avaging war on our insect enemies as avc do against each other, a different story might he told. Still, thanks to a groAVing enlightenment, the forces in our daily battle against the insect Avarriors are groAving. A council of war, representing the British Empire, Avas recently held in London, and the members of this Cabinet came from some of the loneliest outposts of civilisation. I went to see the Chief of Staff for the British Empire—Sir Guy Marshall, brilliant director of the Imperial Institute of Entomology. The G.H.Q. of this strangest and most difficult of Avars mankind has ever been called upon to Avage is in a quiet room in the cloistered basement of the Natural History Museum, South Kensington, London.

Most of us have the idea that the man Avho hides his identity under the terribly academic name of “entomologist” is just another of those professorial cranks Avho run around AA’ith butterfly nets, glue paper, and empty jam jars, and impale insects at the end of pins and Avrite underneath them Latin tags that look like laryngitis.^ Actually, the practical entomologist of to-day*is the expert scientist Avho is making it possible for man and beast and agricultural crop to thrive the Avorld over. Without his aid, and that of some birds and parasites Avhich are anti-pests, the insects Avould sweep us right out of existence. They represent 60 per cent, of all living things; and it is estimated that greenfly, and other common or garden nuisances, if alloAved to have -their oavu Avay, could destroy the world’s A'egctation in six months! “The Imperial Institute of Entomology,” Sir Guy Marshall told me, “is really a bureau for practical Avork. Here, every week, Ave receive some 2000 letters and specimens and requests for advice All the information gathered is issued and indexed in our quarterly report, Avhich is, in effect, the ‘Bible’ of the man in the field or bush. If he comes across a new pest which is eating his crop or killing his stock, and he cannot find its description, he sends a specimen lot us to identify.” Sir Guy Marshall sAvept his hand toward a long table filled Avith all manner of little boxes made of Avhite avoocl, oi cardboard, or cigar boxes Avitli labels on them. Each contained some deadly and costly insect to he reported upon and a line of attack mapped out. “Frequently the importation of a parasite Avill rid a countryside of the post. In five years Ave have sent over 7,500,000 parasites abroad. “Research Avork on the spot is invaluable, but lack of money prevents much of that work being extended:. We are noAV completing a five years test in the locust lands. Our expert in the Sudan came upon the beginning of a locust swarm, and be sent to Khartoum for aid. The swarm was destroyed: the damage thus saved is incalculable. That is wliat entomology docs.”