The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-12-16
BOLL WEEVIL NOT
 SUCH 4 BUGABOO Reports Show That Damage Is
 Not So Very Great MISSISSIPPiANS HOPEFUL Committee Is Sent to Texas and Louisl. ana and Its Report Tends to Take
 Away the Scare Among
 Cotton Planters.
MISSISSIPPiANS HOPEFUL

the fact that the board of supervisors
 of Jefferson county had sent a commit
 tee of five good, sensible farmers, one
 from each beat in the county, to the boil weevil districts of Texas and Louis
 jana with a view to securing informa-
 tion as to the effect of the pests on
 the farming lands of these states, best
 methods of figh ting them, etc. That committee has returned and has
 made a full report, but not such the
 citizens of the county were expect ing. Their neighbors are assured that
 the boil weevil is not as near the enemy
 as he had been painted and represented
 to be. Texas farmers do not pay much
 attention to the weevil. They have
 made up their minds to get along with
 him and are doing so, making more
 cotton than ever. The weevil cuts
 down the yield per acre to some ex-
 tent but when cotton is planted early
 and worked we'll on land from which
 the stalks had been burned the pre- vious winter good crops are made. The | committee found plenty of Texas farm | CTS who were making just as much cot l ton as they did before the weevils
 came and their fields were full of | them.
 This report is the most encouraging that Mississippians have ever seen or | heard since the boil weevil was first announced and robs the visitation of
 many of it's terrors. The fact of the | business is that the farmers in these | counties the weevil has already in-
 vaded have been panic stricken for several months and had an idea that in another year they would have to | give up the production of cotton en- tirely or sell out and move away from
 that vicinity.
 A great deal has been said and writ l ten on the subject of boil weevils that | tended to frighten the merchants and
 bankers as well as the farmers and
 some of them have gone to the ex-
 tent of declaring they will not do l furnishing business with any farmer who has the boil weevil, or who has | failed to pay his store account this 1 year.
 It has been insisted all along by | some of the thinking men of the state I that the coming of the boil weevil would prove blessing in disguise and | it will if it forces the farmer to raise all he needs for himself and stock on | his own farm. Mississippi farmers would all be rich. if they lived at home
 and boarded at the same place. Cotton Baeslng for 1909. J. l.. Collins, business agent of the Farmers urlon has directed the atten- l ton of the members of the locals every where to the fact that 1t is time for them to let the mills know what they are going to do another year about bagging. The srate officials have been doing their best for the past few years to have their mem- bers use cotton bagging exclusively, but comparatively little has been used, and for the simple reason that the price was little higher than the price of the old- fashioned jute bagging.
 Mr. Collins suggests that every local union should sound it's membership on this point between now and the day of the state meeting in Jackson early in January, so that they may be able to tell Il mills lust about how much cotton bag ging to make up next season.
 Mississippi seems to have been almost alone in her demand for the use of cotton hagging, and while the fight for its use has been waged relentlessly, the idea has not grown into popular favor by any means a fact that is due to the price. However, the leaders of the movement de- clare they are not at all cast down, and that the crusade will go right along till cotton bagging is an accomplished fact. Yazoo City enjoys the distinction of be- ing the oniy town in Mississippi that owns
 an electric CT any other kind of street
 railway, and it Is said that Maurice. La.,
 Is the only ether municipality in the Uni
 ted States that does.
 The authorities at Yazoo issued bonds
 in the sum of s50,0O0, sold the bonds at a satisfactory price, let out the contract and
 built the line in short order after once
 getting to work. There was a year or more delay because of injunctions that
 were secured to stop the sale of the bonds
 and it went on through to the supreme
 court, where 1t was declared strictly legal and constitutional.
 The incident of the building of the line is
 now closed, tho city fathers having ac-
 cepted the load and paid the contractors
 their monsy.
 Safe Is Badly Loaded.
 John Stephenson, postmaster at Ma