SCIENCE AND AGRICULTURE.
Something of the change which modern mechanical inven- tion is bringing to agriculture is indicated by the success which has attended the use of the aeroplane to assist Southern cotton-growers in checking the ravages of the boll weevil and the pink boll worm. To check the first, aeroplanes have been employed to dust the cotton fields with arsenicals, and the method has proved both effective and expeditious, some six hundred acres of cotton being treated and saved in this way in an hour. The pink boll worm is not so generally injurious as the boll weevil, but has done enormous damage, and, hitherto, has necessitated a ban being placed upon cotton growing in affected areas. A difficulty against which previous attempts to check the scourge broke down was lack of knowledge of how infection was carried and from what source. Areas miles apart would suddenly be infested while intermediate districts were untouched. The mystery has now been solved by experts of the Federal Bureau of Ento- mology with the help of an aeroplane. Equipped with traps to catch the insects, the aeroplanes swept the upper air at an altitude usually free from insect life. There the carriers were located and, in addition, it was found that instead of their source being local, as had been supposed, it was much further afield across the Mexican border. Accord- ingly, the need for co-operation between Mexican and American authorities is recognized, and is being sought in order to extinguish the insect to the benefit of cotton- growers in both countries.
Previous page
