The Brandon news. (Brandon, Miss.) 1892-1961, 1910-07-14
FIGHTING THE BOIL WEEVIL
DR.. H. Guy Hathorn, Agent Farmers Co.
operative Demonstr0aon Work, Writes
on hozc East Texans are Tgh-
ing the WeevI-

Some Conclusions on the Boil Weevil
Situation resulting from trip to East
Texas.
The first thing l want to impress on
the people of Marion County is that we
are up against. proposition and that
have got to fight BY that, l do not mean
that fairly good crop may be made by
some individuals this year without doing
anything tc combat the boil weevil, but
that no chances should be taken, and that
everything possible should be done to re-
duce the damage to the minimum.
1t is not necessary for me to tell all
the different stages of panic that the Tex
as people passed through nor all the fool
ish and useles things that they at first
did on account of the boil weevil. What
| want to do is to show that we may profit
by their experience if we will, and save
to Marion county many thousand of dol
lars by following the advice of those who
have already passed through an economic
crises; end who having won out in the
fight they put UP, are more prosperous
than ever before When the weevil struck
east Texas seven years ago he found three
distinct varieties of fools, first those who
ignored him second those who ploughed
up promising fields of cotton and quit,
third those who were determined to fight
to. finish. In the course of seven years
the first two varieties have moved up
a peg and now all of them are in the last
named class. The only difference now
is that the first two varieties show the
hard bumps that they get while chang
ing places and all are making nearly as
much cotton as they did before. Further
more, al Of them are still fighting the
weevil
| hope the great majority of farmers
in Marion county will Mt once take their
places in the graduating class and pro-
coed to get busy at once.
What | shall advise in this fight we
must make is not lot of fine spun theory
but it is the actual experience of hard
headed practical farmers just like you
and me.
| want to say right here that we have
some advantages to begin with over the
people of east Texas. While our soil and
rain fall averages about the same amount.
We have never been as entirely depen-
dent on a cotton crop as they were. A
large per cent of our people make cotton
a surplus crop and are thus already in
position to make less cotton if necessary.
The use of commercial fertilizers, which
hastens cotton to earlier maturity is not
general in east Texas, with us it is al
most universal That is decided adj
vantage for us, because under weevil
conditions the earlier the crop is matured
the bigger the crop will be.
oMq IIsl II!M 'spIoM AaJ U! 'MoN
the people of Texas under similar con-
ditions to our own have won out.
First they break the land early and
harrow il several times before planting.
They do not plant specially early, about
the same date that gave best acreage
results before the. weeyil came. In our
case, that would be from roth to 10th
of April. Second they plant the best seed
they can get preferably Of "A blg=polled
early maturing variety, such ~ the Tri-
-umph, or Cleveland big-boll. They ad-
wise seed selection from ths field or Gull