Mr. BUCHANAN. Well, why could you not experiment with some little batteries on some machines, without taking an airplane to learn how to charge this poison with positive electricity?

Mr. COAD. That is exactly what we are doing.

Mr. BUCHANAN. Without going to all this expense of an airplane? Mr. COAD. Well, the airplane end of it comes back to this, that you have got to work it out from the beginning. In other words, we started with a known condition that airplane operation created adhesion.

Mr. ANDERSON. What Mr. Buchanan wants you to do is to spread this stuff with a Ford.

Mr. BUCHANAN. Yes: with a Ford.

Mr. COAD. There is a rather interesting development right there in ground machinery to charge our poison and try to find a cheap generator which would be efficient for farm operation. We found the best generator we could make use of was the Ford flywheel type. I believe the patents on it expire next year, and we are going to put Ford flywheel types on our machines.

But answering your question, Mr. Buchanan, you must recognize this, that there is a mighty technical problem involved in working this thing out.

Mr. BUCHANAN. I do not know any department of the Government that could work out this problem better than the Department of Agriculture.

Mr. COAD. That is what we are working on now. Last year we built two machines based roughly on the principle that we thought came from the airplane operation, operated just on the ground, and we got successful control in the daytime. They were shop-built jobs. Out of those we have dsigned four types for the coming season, and we are going to use those, with or without charges, and we think that in another year, from the information we have now, we will be able to put into operation daylight dusting machines which will be a big commercial advantage and which will bring into commercial control large areas. like your own out in Texas. where conditions are unfavorable for night operation.

Mr. BUCHANAN. Well, of course, you understand the conditions in the way of a farmer buying and operating a flying machine to poison cotton. You are bound to realize that if the flying machine comes in. the poisoning of cotton would fall into the hands of two big flying machine operators who would do it on a contract system, and that is impracticable right now. It may come after a while, but the important thing now is to get the character of machine and the charge of the electricity within the reach of the farmer, somthing like $300 or $400, so that he can poison his own cotton in his own way and at his own time.

Mr. COAD. The best thing we have in view now is a machine that will probably cost $300 retail, that is on a production basis, and will take care of 300 to 400 acres of cotton a season. Now, that is a large capacity machine. We have got to work backward from that, with the small individual. It is always a simpler mechanical problem to start out at the top and work down.

Mr. BUCHANAN. You might get a cheaper machine.

Mr. COAD. That is probable, too, and we are hoping we will be able to get a machine of that character by 1925. There is certainly a question of urgency in many districts in the Cotton Belt.

Mr. ANDERSON. You folks are thoroughly committed to the idea that the charging of these particles with electricity has something to do with their adherence to the plants?

Mr. COAD. I think there is no question of that.

Mr. ANDERSON. It sounds a good deal like a fairy story.

Doctor HOWARD. Some of the best physicists and meteorolog.sts agree with us on that point.

EXPERIMENTS ON NEW METHODS OF MANUFACTURING CALCIUM ARSENATE.

Mr. COAD. We have been working for several years on a new process of manufacturing calcium arsenate that may cost people twothirds as much as the present process. It is a very simple scheme, and incidentally a plant for producing it can be built for about $8,000, whereas a plant by the present process costs about $250,000. Mr. BUCHANAN. Now you are talking. That is the sort of thing to get at.

Mr. COAD. There is a method which would enable the little manufacturers to put them out all over the South, and cut out all this big equipment, and the investment would not be so heavy in plant equipment. We worked it down to the point where we had calcium. arsenate, but we could not mill it. The question with it was that it stuck to the sides of the mill in grinding and we could not mill it. Then we tested the electrical end of it, and one firm spent $50,000 on experimental milling and gave it up. We took one of those same mills and set it upon an insulator and put a positive charge on the mill. Now you can not get the calcium arsenate to stick to the sides of the mill. It turns out a perfect product. All that came from this original idea. We made several tons of that stuff recently, and I see no reason in the world why that is not as good as any calcium arsenate that has ever been made, for our purposes. Undoubtedly within a very short time that will be very extensively used.

CALCIUM ARSENATE A REMEDY FOR CONTROL OF BOLL WEEVIL.

Mr. BUCHANAN. The primary question is this: Is the department convinced that calcium arsenate is a proper remedy for the boll weevil, to control him?

Mr. COAD. Here is the best answer to that, Mr. Buchanan [showing chart]. Of course, we tested a good many methods during the season. In fact, we had 177 methods of weevil control under test during the season and probably the most widely known were the dusted calcium method, the Florida method, the home-made molasses method, the Boll-we-go, the Weevil-nip, and Hill's Mixture. Roughly 30 tests were conducted with each and cost figures kept, the yields also kept carefully, and this chart [indicating] shows your profit and loss. Now, out of that dusted calcium arsenate there was an estimated profit of $18.05 over the cost: out of the Florida method we got a profit of 78 cents; out of the home-made molasses method we made a profit of $5.47. The red indicates loss. Under that head,

Boll-we-go was $2.55; the Weevil-Nip, $1 and something; Hill's Mixture, $10 and something.

Mr. BUCHANAN. There was [indicating Hill's Mixture] too much damage done per acre to the cotton.

Mr. COAD. No good and some damage. This year it has been rather unusual in that more organizations have taken up comparative tests of different methods of control. Almost every State has conducted about the same series of tests and a committee was appointed by the Southern Agricultural workers to bring all this together. There were 11 experimental sources working on the subject, and they brought these tests together at the annual meeting of the Southern workers at Birmingham a short time ago, and the results of the tests as outlined by the committee as a whole, absolutely follow our tests. The general average of the council reported for all tests on dusting was $25 and something per acre. Now, that is just the effect. We have not always been just sure how far we were going to be justifield in developing, using, and improving it, and that places us on a much more sound basis that we have ever been before, and we can not afford to ignore a good many of these other control methods that we have been devoting attention to.

There is another angle to it, that if we go out into new territory we strike new problems. One of the most important problems is that in certain sections of the country we find that when we use the dusted calcium arsenate we increase the cotton louse up to the point of injury from it. We have had to do considerable investigating on this subject, and we are still working on it with a view to controlling the louse. We find, I think, that we will be able to modify our dusting program and get around it.

Mr. BUCHANAN. Then your problems have increased rather than decreased in fighting the boll weevil?

Mr. COAD. We have been just finding out what our problems are.

COST OF MANUFACTURING AIRPLANES FOR DUSTING PURPOSES.

Mr. BUCHANAN. The department seems to be committed to the airplane method. Has the airplane been constructed so as to give you a fair opportunity to test it out absolutely?

Mr. COAD. The airplane work was carried on under a supplemental appropriation carried in a deficiency bill last year amounting to $40,000. It was to find out two things, if possible-why this poison stuck and whether the plane could be used. We find that the planes can be used, but we find we can not recommend commercial operation with any plane now in existence. All planes so far have been built for military purposes, practically speaking, and planes are built like commercial vehicles, for certain purposes.

Mr. BUCHANAN. Which means that you want to construct airplanes to further conduct these tests?

Mr. COAD. We are in the situation where we will have to do that, if we are to continue with airplane tests.

Mr. BUCHANAN. How much would it cost to construct an airplane?

Mr. COAD. It would cost about $100,000 to develop and build a new airplane of that type, from the War Department figures.

Mr. ANDERSON. We would not take the War Department figures over here on that proposition. The military committee may do that, but we will not.

Mr. COAD. That same subject has been taken up with several manufacturers of airplanes.

Mr. ANDERSON. When you can build an airplane for $1,200 it is pretty hard to make anybody believe that it takes $100,000 to develop one.

4

Mr. COAD. Well, there is no use in building one airplane of a new type. One airplane is never an operating unit. The only way. to go about it sanely and expect to get results is to build three planes in rotation; the first one designed as well as you can for the purpose; put in modifications on the second from your experience with the first; put in modifications on the third from your experience with the second; and in that way the military people told us it cost from $250,000 to $300,000 to do it. A manufacturer has offered to do that for us, the actual building of the planes, for $60,000.

Mr. ANDERSON. I am more than ever in favor of the Fords. Mr. COAD. Here is the point. The last new model built cost $100,000. The next five delivered were delivered for $4,500. The point is that you charge against your original plane all your preparations, the jigs and dies and everything of that sort, but after that it is a very simple and cheap proposition.

REDUCTION IN ESTIMATE OF BUREAU.

Mr. BUCHANAN. All right, we have that. Now, you have an estimate of $161,000 for all these insects. What was the estimate of this bureau to the Agricultural Department for fighting these insects in southern fields?

Mr. COAD. The estimate of the Agricultural Department, as well as I can remember, was $275,000.

Mr. BUCHANAN. Do you know the estimate of the department to the Budget committee?

Mr. COAD. Mr. Jump can probably tell you.

Mr. JUMP. The Bureau of Entomology recommended an increase of something like $122,000, but in order to keep these things anywhere at all near the figure we thought we might be able to have considered it was necessary to bring it down to $25,000 when the preliminary estimates were submitted in August.

Mr. BUCHANAN. You asked for an increase of $122,000?
Mr. JUMP. That is what the bureau recommended.

Mr. BUCHANAN. And the Budget cut it to $25,000?

Mr. JUMP. No; the department recommended an increase of $25,000 in the preliminary estimate, in the August first estimate. In the regular or September 15 estimate it asked for an increase of $22,500 with a supplemental recommendation of $2,500. The reduction, as it now stands, is $4,950.

Mr. BUCHANAN. Mr. Coad, what will it take to prosecute the cheap manufacture of calcium arsenate, as you have detailed it here, and the further development of the best character of machine-I do not mean airplanes-to poison cotton, and to study the other problems for the control of the boll weevil that may come up, eliminat

83009-2429

ing the airplane as an operating machine-I mean any expense in building or operating an airplane. What expense will it take to fight, as efficiently as you can, the boll weevil?

Mr. COAD. We do not feel that we can go ahead as efficiently as we ought to, eliminating the airplane in this way; that we have still got to do some developing there before we can operate with a ground machine.

Mr. BUCHANAN. I am eliminating the development of the airplane for that purpose-$150,000 or $200,000 that you are talking about-I do not mean eliminating the borrowed machines, but eliminating your original suggestion of taking $150,000 or $200,000 for the construction of a special type machine for that purpose, I want to know what amount of money the department can use as efficiently and as effectively as possible in the development of all other problems of boll-weevil control.

Mr. COAD. I do not happen to have my own estimate figures here on the segregation of the control items, but roughly, the item, as far as I have it outlined in my mind, was in the neighborhood of $200,000 in excess of the Budget estimate.

Mr. BUCHANAN. That is $75,000 less than the bureau?

Mr. COAD. No; that is adding about $80,000 to the bureau's estimate. That other end of it has developed since the bureau's estimate was made up. The bureau's estimate was made up in July.

Mr. BUCHANAN. That would make about $262,000?

Mr. COAD. No; $300,000.

Mr. BUCHANAN. $200,000?

Mr. COAD. In excess of the Budget estimates.

Mr. BUCHANAN. Yes, that is right; $300,000. Now, this boll weevil has spread over the entire Cotton Belt?

Mr. COAD. About 97 per cent of it.

Mr. LEE. What section of the country has escaped it-North Carolina?

Mr. COAD. No; North Carolina is completely infested. Practically the only section not infested is the arid sections of the West. Mr. BUCHANAN. That is where it is dry?

Mr. COAD. Yes, sir.

AMOUNT OF DAMAGE TO COTTON BY BOLL WEEVIL.

Mr. BUCHANAN. If you could save $8 or $10 an acre on cotton culture it would be a wonderful saving for the South and for the Nation. Mr. COAD. Last year there were something under 2,000,000 acres poisoned. Our reports show about 92 per cent of the farmers poisoning successfully. Their increase has averaged over 250 pounds of cotton per acre, so that in itself is no mean item in the operation, which is still in its introductory period.

Mr. ANDERSON. I did not quite understand your figures in regard to this item. You have $101,000 allocated to boll weevil control under the present appropriation?

Mr. COAD. Yes, sir.

Mr. ANDERSON. What was your figure as to the additional amount that would be necessary to make investigations that you thought desirable, eliminating the development of the special types of airplane for that purpose?

Mr. COAD. Roughly, $200,000. I have figured a little under that.