The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-12-21
CAMPAIGN ID ROUT
 THE BOLL WEEVIL
Special Train Has Returned
 from Tour of State
FARMERS ARE INTERESTED
In Some Places In Mississippi Farmers Take No Interest In Boil Weevl Talk, But Generally the Lee
 lures Are Well Received.

H. cial. )-The Boil Weevil Special" re- turned to Jackson yesterday and the party of expert entomologists, agricul- turists and horticulturists have dis banded for their homes. The train came down the Yazoo and Mississippi Valley from Lexington, stopping at Yazoo City, Flora and other places, where they had good crowds to hear the lecturers tell how to fight MT. Weevil. Governor Noel was in the party and presented the speakers dur ing the day. it being his first day with the party. Commissioner of Agricul ture Blakeslee was also along.
 As a general thing the Boil Weevil Special, train furnished gratis by the Illinois Central railroad for this work, was well received at the towns at which it stopped. showing that the ma iority of farmers are very much ex- ercised at the prospect of having their cotton crops cut in half by the insect pests, but at other places it is stated by members of the party they got the cold shoulder. The temperature at
 
 just sent a committee of farmers to Texas to investigate for them, and that committee had reported that Texas was making more cotton than ever and prospering. It Is supposed that for that reason the farmers of the community have no faith in the experts and be- lieve they are really doing harm.
  burg they found no interest taken worth mentioning, and at Clarksdale still further up in the delta the visitors were frozen out. It is said the business men of the community and the farm CTS had held a meeting and declined to take any stock in the expert vista- tion. There was little in the way of crowd at Greenwood, and at other places, but at Mound Bayou, the all- negro town owned and managed by negroes exclusively, there was a crowd of at least 400, and great interest was taken in the lectures.
 The object of this special train was to put farmers on their guard and to give them the benefit of the experience of the Texas farmers with the weevil. Their advice is to burn all old stalks. plant early varities. cultive furiously and diversity crops so as to live at home as far as possible.
 Speaking of the boil weevil situation the governor says: "It is folly to min imize or discredit the near and certain damage which this insect will cause. rrl followed it's arrival in parts of Texas and Louisiana can be largely avoided and counteracted by adopting, in time, the benefit of that experience and all tering farming methods which the boil weevil neeessitates, and which has made some counties which were at first almost ruined, as prosperous as ever, or more so. Every person directly con- nected with the growing of cotton should now study the habits and methods of the boil weevil and the best means by which its evil has been remedied. Unlike some other pests. which come periodically and for which some method of extermination has been discovered, the boil weevil moves stead
 
 come, forever remains. The greatest sufferers will be those sceptical or ignorant cotton growers who will ad- here to former cultural methods and re- fuse to accept the benefit of experience and knowledge of other men and sec tions now successfully solving this problem"
 Commissioner of Agriculture Blakes- lee, who was also on board the Boil Weevil Special in it's tour of the state. is equally positive that methods must be changed if the farmers would make anything at all He found that the negroes on many plantations in the in- fected districts have moved out and gone to counties higher up in the delta where there are no weevils as yet They have been told that the merchants are not going to supply and furnish them next year, and they saw nothing but starvation in that. Hundreds Of them are said to have left the southwestern counties, and so great has been the migration that the railroads have been put to their best efforts to supply the cars to handle the traffic in household effects
 State Senator Bilbo of Marion countv