The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-02-01
BOLL-WEEVIL-
 PR0PHESIED
 - Alabama Crop In Great
 Danger PREPARATION FOR THE PEST Thos. P. Grasty Writes His lnyes-
 tigations. Calculated That weevn win Reach Alabama st very Latest h Time to work Havoc 1h 1872 ~ Crop.

Crop.
 The destruction of large part of the cotton crop in Alabama by the boil weevil, is sprophssied by Thomas F. Grasty, who has Just completed a thor ough investigation of the preparation for the pest, now going on in this State. Radical departures from exist Ing systems and methods of aEricul- ture, he asserts In the current number of The Manufacturers Record, VIII have to be made in order to prevent. . deplorable disaster.
 Tt Is calculated that the boil weevil will arrive, at the very latest, in time seriously to damage the cotton crop of 1sI2." Mir. Grasty continues. .The thought of the land-owninE class is a1- ready concentrated on the problems that will have to be solved before then in order to mitigate the damage 80 far as is possible by getting ready for the fight before the enemy attacks.
 since 1t is admitted that there ts neither prevention. nor cure for the boil weeniTs destructive work On the cotton plant. the question of the hour Is how to reduce the inevitable damag ge most effectually. All agree that the best course Is to grow more food crops, more corn, oats and hay. and to raise more hogs, mules and cattle and in this way make up for the loss II. rev. enue that 1t is generally admitted will result from the shortening of the cot ton crop.
 But while all thinking men In this part of Ala bama are of the same mind as to how best to meet the coming emergency, 1t is unfortunately a fact that comparatively few of the large landowners are able to do what they know well enough ought to be done to prepare tor the impending invasion. Here. asFin western Mississippi, the main dificulty is the demoralization of labor wrought by the tadvancing sys- tenn
 "There are in this particular county. Sumter, nearly five times as many me- groes as white inhabitants. It is rep resentative of belt stretching south reastWardly to the Georgia line, with such cities as Selma and Montgomery on its northern edge. This stretch of land was originally called the Black Belt on account of the color of It's soil, although since the war most peo- pie think 1t is so called on account of the color of so many of its inhabitants This county, like most of the others kQEOukn WHICH IuC oldCk 0Cll- PdbbCS1 contains a considerable area of sandy land. which is occupied almost exclu- sbvely by white farmers, with small holdings, and these may be called 'yeo- men farmers in cOntradistinction to the big planterR or owners Of large bodies of black iatfdl ctltfVhted ehtire- ly by negro tenants. working on shares q. G., for a part o&-what they raise) or paying a fixed rental in money or l.x kH.A advancing system been more in vogue than throughout this Black Belt of Alabama" owing to its universality, while, I still believe that the ultimate result of this cotton destroyer's rav- ages will be advantageous, there will surely be 8 great many instances of deplorable hardships and some of com plete impowerishment. These may be looked for as inevitable in all sections where the advancing system is prac- ticed; that means everywhere where the bulk of the cotton crop is pro- duced by negro tenant farmers or rent CTS. For in these regions preventive measures are almost impossible, be- cause the negro demands fadvances' and many merchants do that sortA of business exclusively, and for them 10 cease advancing would simply mean to shut up shop, and human experience has shown that few men who will abandon their sole way of making a living until forced to abandon 1t by conditions beyond their control.
 The negro who gets all he needs (and often all he wants) furnished to him in advance of tho produc- tion and deliveryN o6 the cot- ton that Is to pay for what he has been getting-is C.; what has been; '.ad- vaneed"--will not change his way of buying everything he eats and raising cnly cotton so long as he feels that someone<is going to take care of him, He will not plant a vegetable in his garden, nor even a sweet potato nor pea patch, so long as he can find a mer- chant who will sadvance' him things to eat. It is the exception, rather than the rule, that he will raise enough corn to feed his mule, preferring to get his mules food as well as his own "ad- Nanced." Therefore, 1t will net be un- til after the boll-weevi has swooped down on his cotton and destroyed it that he will believe thatsany change of method is> at all worthy of oonsidera- tion. Then perhaps he can be brought to realize that instead of planting his cotton late and working 1t lazily, he must plant it early and work it fast, rand that, unless he wants to go hun grys he must plant more corn and raise eVeFytulnS IO eaI LndI AC lS pOSslDl0 LOT him to raise.
 "On the other hand. the white "yeo. man farmers" who occupy the less fer tile sandy regions which flank the Black Belt. will be less disastrously af- fected. because these. as a rule, pay as | they go, are not enervated and demor- alized by the paternalistic effects of the advancing system" and can be cas- lily persuaded to practice preventive meaures for counteracting or diminish ing the damage that the weNRil will dc | If unresisted.
 | rAnd so, too, all over the South, when the boll-weevil comes to the whltE "yeoman farmers"-farmers who work with their own hands-will be found planting still less cotton than they are planting now and more food crops | fer this is the class that has raised the major portion of the surprising sum to- tai of cereals made ready for market last fall. It has been farmers of this class also that have saved the day iE Texas m spite of the bollweevil
 T have today been reading littt' pamphlet containing the very interest ing report of Colonel Fl. c. Stringfel' low, who was sent by the business meT of the city of Monroe, La, and thu planters of Ouachita parish to investi gate the boll-weevil and secure from l practical farmers in North Texas in formation at first hand as to how bes to oppose his operations Here is thu sum and substance of Colonel String fellows conclusions: There Is no sucl thing as constantly, force maturity an'
 burn the stalks in the fall. Raise ol
 the farm everything for home eonsump .st