KING COTTON SICK.

Gisborne Times, Volume LVI, Issue 6318, 22 February 1922, Page 2

KING COTTON SICK.

U.3.A. FACED WITH AN ENORMOUS LOSS.

The. officials of the Department cf Agriculture at Washington have announced that more than one-third of the year’s prop ju the United States has already been destroyed by the cotton boll weevil and that, with the exception of a small area in Arizona and 'California, the boll weevil now dominates every acre cf cotton planted for next season.

The world’s production of c /oton is just over 20 million bales of 5001 b each, of which the United States produced last year 13-A million. This year only 6,} millions of the American cotton is available for the markets, j The, cotton boil weevil is a tiny insect of one-fifth of an inch in length.. The female lays her eggs in the cotton buds, the eggs hatch out in a few days, and the larvae at once attacks the buds, which fall off. The same thing happens when the egg is hatched in the cotton bolls before tliey open, and the contents are rendered useless, whole areas being irretrievably ruined. The insect is a native of Central America and, as far back as 1862, cotton planters in Mexico were compelled to abandon cotton growing on account of its advent. The march of this insect across the American Continent lias attracted the finest of her scientists and agricultural experts, who have tried all known means to stop or stay, is progress of destruction. The cotton weevil’s first appearance in the United States was at Brownsville, in Texas, about 1892 and, for 2D years, it has been marching on and on. ' In 1895 it was well established in the cotton area, and, by 1906, had travelled 585 miles northward from Brownsville. That year it advanced 60 miles. Every succeeding year its toll has been heavier and heavier until this year it has become a menace to the whole American cotton industry. The official estimate'of the 1921 loss was between 50 and SO million sterling, and the damage for this year, according to Senator Smith, of South Carolina, is likely to lie £450,000,000, or equal to nearly half of the public revenue of Hie U.S.A., and the once King Cotton of the States is likely to be dethroned. The situation is now such that for the last time in American history will there be a crop equal to th‘e production of 14 million bales. Some few years ago, Egypt was faced with a similar disaster. The cotton in that country was. attacked by a worm, and a total loss was only averted by scientists, who found that the egrets, which were quickly being exterminated for their plumes, were the ojfly Egyptian bird that preyed upon the worm. An Act cf Parliament protecting the bird has saved £2,000,000 worth of cotton, which, on account of America’s loss this season, will be of increased value to the cotton market. The birds are now valued at £lO worth cf cotton, a much more useful purpose than the decoration of a bat in the years of famine which cotton goods have to face.