Boll weevil on the run

The boll weevil, scourge of Southern farmers for decades, has apparently fallen on hard times. The Delta Farm Press reportedlast month that just three weevils found in Mississippi’s extensive network of insect traps over the past growing season.

That’s a far cry from years ago, when the boll weevil decimated cotton crops across the region, even after farmers began spraying for the pests.

“You could keep them from wiping you out, but you never could get rid of them,” one old-time Mississippi farmer recalled. “It wasn’t anything to walk out in a field and see 10 to 12 on a single bloom.”

And any bleeding-heart types out there who worry about the impact of the weevil’s erradication on the environment can always travel to Enterprise, Ala., to visit the Boll Weevil Monument.