Typed as spelled and written
Lena Stone Criswell
THE MARLIN DEMOCRAT
Thirteenth Year - Number 28
Marlin, Texas, Thursday, September 11. 1902
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ENEMY TO BOLL WEEVIL.
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A Bug Found That It is Believed Destroys
the Pest.
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A Washington county farmer who has been experimenting considerably with the boll
weevil, thinks that he has found a natural enemy of the pest. It is in the
shape of a little red looking flying bug that somewhat resembles the small red
ant, but which has wings and is very swift on them.
The description tallies with a bug that was
discovered recently by Mr. F. M. Stallworth, Sr. on his farm near Marlin and
which he observed at the time was an enemy of the destructive weevil.
The bug operates in a very peculiar way to
destroy the weevil. Mr. Lipscomb, the Washington county farmer who has
made a very close examination, says the little bugs have a very sharp nose and
go into the cotton squares and deposit their larva on the boll weevil larva, and
that they propagate faster than the boll weevil, and when they hatch out a worm
it subsists on the boll weevil larva. That after they have fully developed
the worm webs up in the cotton square and develops into another fly, and that
the time required for them to reach perfection is only eleven days. He
thinks that inasmuch as they develop so much faster than the boll weevil and are
so much more active, that they will eventually destroy the boll weevil.
Some of the bugs found by Mr. Stallworth
were brought to Marlin and shown to a number of people. He, like the
Washington county man, was firmly convinced that the mission of the bug is to
destroy the weevil.
Learned entomologists have advanced the
theory that the solution to the boll weevil problem was to find some natural
enemy of the weevil. It is suggested that when the farmers pick up their dead
squares that have been punctured by the boll weevil, that they be saved in a box
covered over, so that the fly can develop and get out, as it will do much sooner
than the boll weevil, even if all the boll weevils have not been destroyed in
their embryo state.
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Copyright permission granted to Theresa Carhart and her volunteers for
printing
by The Democrat, Marlin, Falls Co., Texas