The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1912-01-20
WRITES ABOUT BOIL WEEvIL
BROTHER OF j. w. KAUFMAN
TELLS OF PEST IN LOUISIANA.
Lost Confidence Was Worst Result
of Weevils Appearance. Farmers
Have PrOfited by Calamity.


Mr.. J. N. Hortman, a former citi-
zen of Terrell county who is now a
prosperous farmer of Louisiana, has
written his brother, Mr.. J. w. Hort
man, of the Sardis community, an in
teresting letter telling how the ap-
pearance of the boil weevil in that
state was at first a calamity, but has
since proved to be a blessing in dis
guise. Mr.. Hortman's letter, which
will no doubt be read with much in
terest by all the readers of The
News, follows:
In reply to your letter Of January
9th asking for information as to the
effect the boil weevils had on our
state l will say that lost confidence
hurt the country more than the boil
Weevils. The banks withheld their
money, merchants refused credit,
land owners refused to advance their
renters and share troopers, and a
great many of the laboring people
went to public works or left the
state. River land that could not
was offered for $40 to $25, and hill
land, valued at IS to $40 per acre,
was offered for sale at 81 to IS per
acre. However, this only lasted two
or three years. Those farmers who
remained steadfast on their farms
and changed their methods of farm
ing and began to raise corn, meat,
sweet and Irish potatoes, hay, syrup,
and their own horses, mules and cat
tie soon began to put money in the
bank, and the bankers soon saw this
and began to advance the farmers
money and the merchants to give
credit, and today north Louisiana is
in better shape than it has been since
the civil war The large farmers
have cut their farms up into one and
two horse farms and are using Gull
t1yators-one man to two horses or
mules. They plant their crops as
level as possible and plant cotton
and corn with seed troopers, and af-
ter they get their cotton to a stand
work it with the cultivators. The
noe IS not used any more after cot
ton is chopped to stand, and we
are making more than twice as much
per acre as we did before the boil
weeYil came, and land here now is
held at SIS to $40 per acre. The
river lands have been planted to al
falfa, and the farmers are raising
hogs, cattle, mules and horses, and
these lands have advanced back to
500 per acre
Now, as for giving you any infor-
nation as to how we manage the boil
weevil, we don't manage them. l
have been farming 46 years and have
never struck anything yet that is as
hard to manage as the boil weevil.
We break our land deep in the fall
and plant as early as the weather
will permit, and if we have a wet
June and July the weevils get it
unless we gather and burn the punct-
ured squares; and if we do this it
costs nearly as much as it does to
pick the cotton If June and July
are hot and dry we make a good crop
of cotton, provided we pillow it once
a week-shallow- hold the moist
ure to the surface and to cover the
weevils in the hot dirt. If they are
covered in hot dirt they will die in
two or three hours.
The weevils struck us first in Sep
TENDER, 1906. The next year, 1907,
in May, and since then they come
with the cotton. and we find them on
the bud leaf, and as the cotton be-
gins to put on squares the weevils
start to puncturing them, the