Senator PAGE. Do you not think the Secretary of Agriculture fully comprehended all these facts that you have given us?

Senator PERCY. I do not know to what extent the Secretary, or his department, which has this work under its control, fully understands the situation, but they have no hesitation in saying that they need more money, and they assure me- and that is verified by Mr. Knapp who is in charge of that work-that they need this additional amount to make that work as effective as they would like to make it; that this would enable them to cover all these counties in which the weevil is just now entering, in Mississippi and Alabama, with an expert in each county, which is absolutely necessary to educate the people in making an intelligent fight.

The CHAIRMAN. In that connection let me say that the estimate by the department was $332,960. Last year the appropriation was $350,000 and the House allowed the estimate, $332,960.

Senator PERCY. I know that before introducing it I took the matter up with Mr. Savory, the assistant in Mr. Knapp's office, and he furnished these figures and the information, that, if given the additional amount, they could then cover the field as thoroughly as they would like to cover it, but they are not able to cover it with the amount in its present shape..

The appropriation is somewhat inconsiderable in view of the magnitude of the interests involved.

Senator PAGE. That Committee on Agriculture is largely made up. of southern men, and they cut it down. The appropriation was $350,000.

The CHAIRMAN. Yes.

Senator PERCY. They allow the estimate this year, $352,000. Of course, in making the estimate, I presume the department considers expenditures along all other lines and makes it on whatever basis they think could be awarded.

The CHAIRMAN. What methods are used now to control the ravages of the boll weevil?

Senator PERCY. The methods that this would largely be expended in would be in instructing the farmers in early preparation, the use of early maturing seed and rapid cultivation to produce fruition before the weevil begins his work.

Senator PAGE. Also intensive cultivation.

Senator PERCY. That brings about intensive cultivation. The department has been of very great value. As an illustration, in Louisiana, right opposite Vicksburg, the largest planter in Louisiana is Col. Maxwell, or one of the largest planters. He planted about 6,000 acres of cotton before the weevil came. He got the Government to put an experiment station on his property and with the Government experts visited a number of times that section of Texas and Louisiana that the weevil was covering each year as it approached nearer and nearer to him. He reduced his acreage in cotton to about 3,000 acres, and last year, his fourth year under the weevil conditions, adopting all the methods prescribed by the Government, he produced more cotton per acre on that acreage than he had done before the weevil reached him.

Senator PAGE. What did your State do with regard to that?

Senator PERCY. Our county assists in paying the salary of the Government experts.

Senator PAGE. How much do they assist as compared with the sum given by the Government?

Senator PERCY. I think it is 50 per cent. I know in my own county it is 50 per cent.

The CHAIRMAN. If the type of cotton is found that matures early, does that counteract the effect of the boll weevil?

Senator PERCY. If the season will permit an ordinary dry season or early maturing cotton. The weevil becomes very destructive only in August, and quite a large proportion of the cotton crop can be made to mature by the 1st of August. It strikes my section, the Delta section, worse than any part that it has yet reached because the bulk of the staple cotton of the United States is grown in the Deltacotton from an inch and a quarter to an inch and five-sixteenths, and some as high as an inch and nine-sixteenths. That is grown in the Delta and is a slow maturing crop, and the effect of the advance of the weevil has been because of the abandonment, certainly to the extent of 70 per cent, of the staple cotton this year in the Delta. Senator PAGE. And the substitution of a shorter cotton? Senator PERCY. Shorter and very much less valuable. Cotton is worth to-day, the ordinary cotton, 11.50, and staple cotton would be worth from 17 to 24 cents a pound. That element of value is already eliminated by the approach of the weevil. The department is also engaged in very valuable experimental work in trying to discover a staple of our cotton which will mature earlier, but that is still in its experimental stage. They hope to be able to develop it.

The CHAIRMAN. Have they any means of destroying the weevil? Senator PERCY. None whatever.

Senator PAGE. You burn your rubbish after the season is over and in that way destroy a great many, do you not?

Senator PERCY. The recommendation of the department is to destroy all the stalks before frost so as to catch the weevil before it goes into hibernating quarters, and to destroy the weevil that way. The first crop of weevils that come out just after the cotton has squares on it, they destroy as many as possible by actually picking those weevils.

Senator GORE. They attack the squares?

Senator PERCY. Yes; and they estimate that one pair of weevils will propagate 32,000,000 weevils in a season. So, if you can destroy in large measure the first crop of course you destroy an immense amount of the potential weevil.

If the committee would like to have Mr. Knapp appear before them I am sure he would be glad to do so and bear out the recommendation for the increase, and will state that that amount could be very profitably and properly employed by the department.

Senator WARREN. Do they report from the department that they had insufficient funds last year, or this present fiscal year?

Senator PERCY. I was not able to be present at the meeting when the Secretary was interrogated in regard to this.

Senator WARREN. I mean from what you hear from him.

Senator PERCY. Yes; Mr. Savory, the assistant to Mr. Knapp, told me he had it direct from Mr. Knapp. I discussed the matter with him and he recommended and stated that the department desired the increase of $50,000.

Senator WARREN. The reason I ask is because the House gave the full estimate and I speak of it because I was the acting chairman at the time, as to that bill, and we had quite a discussion and considerable opposition in getting it as high as we did. I think the professor you speak of was before us here, Prof. Knapp, and he thought that he could use the whole sum. There was some discussion on the floor and we put it at $350,000. Now, the estimate this year is $332,000, and of course to add your $50,000 would make it $382,000, which would be thirty thousand and odd dollars more than they had last year.

I notice here in the Secretary's testimony the other day before the committee the following occurs:

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Secretary, what do you say about the increase of $50,000 over the estimate?

Secretary WILSON. The estimates that we made down there?
The CHAIRMAN. Yes; you made the same estimates.

Secretary WILSON. We did not estimate for this $50,000.

The CHAIRMAN. Your estimate was $332,600.

Senator GUGGENHEIM. They gave you what you estimated for.

Secretary WILSON. I consulted Senators before I made these estimates.

The CHAIRMAN. We will leave that until Senator Percy is present.

Senator CHAMBERLAIN. What examination are you making as to the boll weevil? Secretary WILSON. The best estimate that I can give is that there never was a time when the cotton crop was as big in the South as it was last year.

Senator CHAMBERLAIN. You are not destroying it, but finding means to prevent its work?

Secretary WILSON. We have found a way to help the southern people to farm better and raise more cotton and corn both. There are agencies at work fighting the boll weevil. If we can get everybody down there to quit using a gun and shooting the birds, that would be effective. Cultivation particularly has been beneficial.

Senator PERCY. I think that is unquestionably true. The department has done and is doing splendid work.

Senator WARREN. They have been much interested, and whenever representatives from the Agricultural Department have been before us they always seem interested in making the report of what it is their intention to accomplish and what they have accomplished.

Senator CHAMBERLAIN. Have you any objection to incorporating in the record here the statement of depreciation that you quoted from awhile ago?

Senator PERCY. I have handed it to the reporter, and it has already gone into the record.

Senator WARREN. I suppose the boll weevil is the chief of all your troubles down there in an agricultural way?

Senator PERCY. It was until the Mississippi River flood took care of it. It means a loss of millions and millions to our people and, of course, corresponding great business loss to the buyers of cotton. There are a great number of mills dependent entirely upon the Delta for staple cotton, with all their machinery adjusted wholly to the handling of our staple cotton, that are going to have to change that machinery and go into an entirely different line of business by the curtailment of the staple cotton because of the ravages of the weevil. There are 10,000 acres, I am reliably informed, in my county normally commanding a rental of $8 an acre that the owners would rent at no rental at all except payment of taxes because of the great loss threatened by the weevil.

The CHAIRMAN. Forty per cent of all the cotton that grows in your State is grown in Hinds County, is it not?

Senator PERCY. That is not a list of the cotton grown in the State; it is merely a list of 11 cotton-growing counties where the weevil has been for a period of four years, and that illustrates the damage, the steadily increasing damage, which is done in these counties in that length of time.

The CHAIRMAN. What part of the State is affected by the boll weevil-what part that is adapted for cotton?

Senator PERCY. All the State is adapted for growing cotton, and the weevil covered all this spread this year, between three-fourths and seven-eighths of the State of Mississippi. In some sections, as in my own section, the central portion of Mississippi, 1911 was his first

year.

Senator PAGE. Is Hinds County in the Delta region?

Senator PERCY. None of that is in the Delta. All of it is south of the Delta.

Senator PAGE. I see that Hinds County only lost about 30 per cent between 1910 and 1911, while Copiah County lost the difference between 5,000 and 14,000. Why is that?

Senator PERCY. The counties that lost more are south of Hinds County, and the weevil comes from the South and is doing his worst damage in the southern part of the State.

Senator CHAMBERLAIN. Moving north and east.

Senator PERCY. Yes.

Senator WARREN. Do you clear up as you go so that you are not visited by the second and third attacks as it moves on, or is it spread all over the country?

Senator PERCY. It is spread all over. It is only the surplus crop where the weevil remains, to be taken care of in the territory they were in the year before.

Senator WARREN. I notice that the Secretary, while he did not get at the meat of the question as to whether they needed more money, spoke of producing a large crop, and I supposed from that you were getting the better of it over some if not all the sections.

Senator PERCY. Over no section in Mississippi. The greatest benefit has come up to the present time from Texas and the size of the crop there, in counties that have heretofore been devastated by the weevil, made a crop last year, bringing the crop up to 16,000,000 bales and over. The reason was apparently due to the benefit of the system of cultivation taught by the department, and was also quite largely due to a very dry season in Texas, which enabled them with a dry season, adopting the Agricultural Department's methods, to make a crop under boll-weevil conditions, and there was also a great increase in crop in Texas last year. But in Louisiana the crop has been cut-I have not with me the exact figures-but it has been more than cut in half over the entire State.

Senator GORE. Sixteen million is estimated now?

Senator PERCY. Something over 16,000,000 bales of cotton.
Senator GORE. That is in the United States?

Senator PERCY. In the United States; yes. The loss in the difference between the price of staple cotton and ordinary short staple cotton, even if the same number of bales could be produced, would run over $30,000,000 annually in the Delta.

DRAINAGE.

Senator CHAMBERLAIN. What is your other amendment?

Senator PERCY. The other amendment related to the drainage. I have not had the opportunity to talk with the department with regard to that. I had an engagement to do so to-day, but had an engagement before another committee. It is somewhat ancillary to this same proposition.

You can not raise any cotton on land that is not well drained, and Mississippi and quite a number of other Southern States recognizing that there has been a great impetus given to drainage, and drainage districts have been formed all over the States. The department has been very helpful in furnishing surveyors to map out the plan to be followed and the territory to be embraced in those districts. As an illustration, in the county in which I live we have just formed two districts which together embrace about 360,000 acres of land requiring a bond issue of about $900,000 and the department has been hampered very much in furnishing engineers for that purpose on account of not having sufficient means to do so. That work has increased with very great rapidity through Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama, the formation of drainage districts, and the demand on the department for surveyors to assist in that work. The CHAIRMAN. The only information we have here is in a letter from Director True, dated April 5, 1912, as follows:

[Memorandum for Mr. Zappone.]

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE,

OFFICE OF EXPERIMENT STATIONS,
Washington, D. C., April 5, 1912.

Referring to your memorandum of this date regarding the amendment proposed by Senator Percy to House bill No. 18960, making appropriations for the department for the fiscal year 1913, which would increase our drainage appropriation to $250,000, I doubt the wisdom of so large an incresae for the ensuing year. It is comparatively slow work to organize an efficient force for this service, and it is better to have our work increased gradually. We could use to advantage rather more than we have at present, and if the Senate chose to add, say, $50,000 to the appropriation, it would be a good thing.

It is, however, more important that we should secure the advancement of the other items, about which I have already written you.

A. C. TRUE, Director.

Senator WARREN. Of course you do not expect the Government to go into the business of actually draining private land?

Senator PERCY. Not at all.

Senator WARREN. But to endeavor to get the information to assist. Senator PERCY. That is all. As I say, I have not had an opportunity to discuss it with the department. I would not ask for an appropriation that was adversely passed upon by the department, but I would be glad to get the appropriation increased to the amount indicated by the department.

Senator WARREN. They have given about ninety-odd thousand dollars in the House, as appears, both the last time and this time.

Senator PERCY. The last time I think the committee increased it to about $150,000 and it was stricken out in the House. The committee recommended $150,000, but it failed in conference.