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