The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1911-06-24

Until recently the path OF the in
yading army of cotton boll weevils has
been one Of ruin to the planter. 1t
has depopulated the counties, bank
rupted business and sewn sorrow and
despair. A few years ago it was
rrophesied that it would blight our
whole cotton crop and cause a loss to
the country OF more than $2OO10O,O0l
year. AS 1t is now, notwithstanding
it's rayagas, Ivy the improved farming
methods, an equal amount of cotton
has been raised and last year our
product was greater in quantity and
money than ever before. Had there
/ been no boil weevil and had the same
methods been used throughout the
whole cotton belt, our crop would have
been doubled and we should now be
producing as much as 2OOOO,0O0 bales
and upward a year. This is the esti-
mate of the late DR.. Seaman Knapp,
the father of the cooperative demon
stration work of the agricultural de-
partment throughout the South, which
has proved the salvation of the coun-
try.
Before DR.. Knapp and his agents had
shown the planters what might be
done in cotton raising, notwithstand-
ing the weevil, the farmers were in
despair. They had been raising only
cotton, and the weeyil became the
terror of millions. The planters
thought it was impossible to fight it,
and man who had lost big planta-
ton said it was proof against anything
under the sun. At one Of the conyen-
lions he said he had put a weevil in
a bottle of alcohol which was 50 per
cent pure and left it there for two
hours. At the end Of that time he
took it out and put it on the table
and it was only staggering drunk He
then sealed a handful of the insects in
a tin can and laid it upon a brush
heap, which was set on fire. The
flames melted the solder from the can
and the red hot weevils flew out and
burned down his barn.
Speaking seriously, however, the de-
partment estimates that the weevil
has already cost us millions of bales
of cotton and many millions of dol
lars. 1t has annually cost Texas more
than twenty millions for a series of
years, and it is now ravaging the
states farther East
Take Mississippi, for instance, the
southern part of which state is now
weevil covered In 1906 the cotton
crop of Adams county amounted to
$4,000 bales, and it was more than
! 90 900 in 1907 Then the weevil flew
| in and in 1909 the yield dropped to
100 bales. The tenant farmers and
laborers left the county in gangs, and
/ today lands can be bought there for
song. 1t is the same in some coun-
! $4,000 bales of cotton, which, includ-
ling the seed, were worth over $780,
600, were raised in 1906, and the crop
of 1907, amounting to Al, 900 bales, was
worth about $3,OOO,OOO. Then the boil
weevil came, and in 1909 the crop fell
| to $500 bales, or to something like
100000 These figures give you some
idea of what this deadly bug means
under the old cotton-raising condi-
tons.
There is another feature of the sit
luation, however, which must be men
toned. In most parts of the cotton
| belt cotton was the only crop. The
planter relied upon it for the money
with which he bought everything else.
He imported his corn from the North
and his pork came from the store. lie
sent abroad for his mules, and, with
the exception perhaps Of a few veg
etables, raised nothing but cotton.
Moreover he did the most of his farm
ing on credit, getting the storekeeper
or planter for whom he worked to fur
nish him with his supplies for the win
ter. the same to be paid out of the cot
ton when it was picked, When the
weevil wiped out the cotton he had
nothing to fall back upon, and starYa
ton stared the greater part of the
population in the face
This was the situation when Uncle
Sam. Patriarch, in the person of his
agent, the late DR.. Seaman A. Knapp
began to instruct the farmer how tC
fight this terrible bug and still make
: money out of his land. DR.. Knapp''
plan was to teach us how to contro
the weevil as far as possible from sea
son to season, and by the proper Sc
lection of seed and by deep plowinl
and narrowing to produce plants
which would yield more cotton, or