The county record. [volume] (Kingstree, S.C.) 1885-1975, 1916-12-07

DN ulEul. IlSIS Soiiu'''oii' ''>''''
got worse, as far as the cotton crop
was concerned, and almost every
cotton field was bare of fruit with
the exception of few bolls near the
bottom of the stalks.
These counties that had made over
10000 bales two years ago will not
make over 5000 this year.
We found very different feeling
among both the farmers and the
business men, however. They
Swarmed around our party everv-
where and were overpowering in
their attentions and in their eager
ness to tell US of the new light that
they had seen. They were all learn
ing to live at home," and many of
them had this year tried other
money crops and stock raising with
marked success. They were begin
ming to prosper and were full of
hope and confidence in a cottonless
future; but they told US to 60 on to
the westward and see for ourselves
what one more year of boil weevil
experience will do for country.
Our third day out found US driv-
ing westward from Dothan as fast
as gasoline could carry US against a
bitter cold blast that would some
times swerve US from one side of
the road to the other; but we were
still on a magnificent highway, and
it did not take us long to reach the
town of Geneva, where we were given
a warm reception. Mr. jenkins, the
county demonstration agent, took
us in hand and taught US more about
the boil weevil than we could have
learned from all the book ever writ
ten. He took US out into the fields
and helped US each catch a bottleful
of weevils, and answered thousand
questions about every phase of wee
vii operations. He explained how
cotton might be made under boil
weevil conditions if the season was
dry and favorable; but he ssid &C.
neva county did not have to make
any more cotton. They were max
ing all the money they needed rails
ing hogs. He showed US huge pens
of fat pigs, all ready for the mar
ket. and said they had already ship
ped 800 carloads of hogs to near
by packing house this year, against
three carloads two years ago.
That afternoon we went on to the
hustling town of Enterprise. Zone
of our party referring to it as
Progress" and when We got there
we found that he was not far wrong.)
This was community where the
weevil had come and gone. 1t had
gone simply because cotton had
gone-and they both had been for
cotton about, except as blessings
that brighten as they take their
fight" They really looked on the
boil weevil as the greatest blessing
they ever had, because it drove
them from cotton to crops that
were more profitable. Everyone
seemed prosperous and happy al
most intoxicated with the taste of
the new freedom that they were en-
joying! They showed US their di-
versifed crops and their cattle and
hogs and mules with the greatest
enthusiasm.
The farmers held a meeting for
our benefit at the town bank that
night, and one after the other told
how he had paid off all his back
debts during the past two years and
was now laying up money in bank.
The bank president confirmed all Of
this, and was the biggest optimist
of them all. He told US most en-
phatically that during the last two
years he had sent thousands Of good
dollars after bad ones, and that in
o,,ox,, o,e. ,,,bara tho formarS haI