Boll Weevil's Ravages

Before the appearance of the boll weevil, the American cotton crop had reached 16,000,000 bales in one season. The demand for cotton has been good for the past two years, but so serious have been the inroads upon the cotton plant by the insect pest, that including the present year, there have been short crops for three years running. Slack demand and low prices can account in part for the small 8,000,000-bale crop of 1921; and to a much lesser extent for the 9,000,000-bale crop of 1922. During the past year, however, the danger of a real cotton shortage all over the world became apparent. Prices rose to War-time levels, and the largest crop in the history of the country was planted. Yet the crop for 1923, it is estimated by experts, will amount to only about 9,000,000 bales again. Never has the boll weevil been so destructive a pest.

Despite the high price of cotton, the average Southern planter has not benefited by it; his losses on weevil-ridden acreage have more than offset his profits.

All over the world there is a pressing demand for cheap cotton. In the past, America has supplied this demand, but unless headway can be made against the boll weevil menace, this country can produce only high-priced cotton.

The high prices of today are, however, a boon to the cotton planting experiments made elsewhere by other nations. The French, for example, are reported to be trying out possibilities of cotton production in their Mediterranean colonies. Great Britain has been studying ways and means of increasing the cotton output of her colonies, particularly in South Africa, Egypt, Australia. Brazil, which years ago gave up cotton for other crops, is now planning to benefit from current soaring prices by again sowing her fields in cotton. It is apparent, therefore, that unless Government experts under the Department of Agriculture can shortly solve the weevil problem, the American cotton planter will face uncertain and precarious profits; while if the solution of the problem is long delayed, he will face international competition such as is at the bottom of the grain growers' dissatisfaction today.