A few years ago the cotton-boll weevil, which had increased
steadily from year to year, reached a point at which it
destroyed in Texas over $30,000,000 worth of cotton in
one season. Many men in southern Texas were bankrupted,
cotton-planting was given up in certain places, and it looked
as if this great wealth-producing industry were doomed in Texas
and probably also in time over the entire South. The practical
farmers were completely overwhelmed. Here the Department of
Agriculture started three lines of experimentation; first, to
find some other harmless insect or parasite that would destroy
the boll weevil as the white scale had been destroyed in
California; second, to develop a species of cotton that could
resist weevil attack; and third, to find a method of cultivation
that would lessen the injury of the attack of the weevil when
made. The ants, which the department brought from South America
to eat up the boll weevil, proved a failure, but the development
of a better method of cultivation and the use of better
adapted varieties of cotton proved so successful that Texas
farmers now, following the methods worked out by the department
investigators, again raise their magnificent crops of cotton, in
spite of the boll weevil.--_The Evening Post._
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