The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1922-12-18
MONDAY, DECEMBER Is, 1872!
BOIL WEEVlL T

among those who will not ask
the legislature to appropriate
$4,000, or any other sum, to
enable agricultural experts to
make experiments in boil wee
vii control.
We take this position not be-
cause of lack of confidence in
the experts but because we fear
they might succeed too well in
their mission.
As this newspaper sees it, a
bout the greatest calamity that
could happen would be the dis
covery of a method of killing all
of the boil weevils.
The above is from Spartanburg's
newspaper, edited by Col. A. M.
Carpenter. Spartanburg County this
year produced. almost a normal crop
of cotton, at least two-thirds of a
normal crop. Mccormick County
made about one thousand bales of
cotton, about fifteen per cent. of a
normal crop. According to a letter
sent out by the Augusta Chamber Of
Commerce some thirty counties in
South Carolina and Georgia, and in
the Augusta territory, produced less
than fifteen per cent. of a normal
crop the last two years.
We imagine if Col. Carpenter were
in Mccormick County now and could
see the number of farms that are
idle, if he could see tbs whole terri
tory below Mccormick with hardly
a house tenanted, and the people
forced to go into the lumber business
to make a living, if he could know
some of the p~rivation and want
which the boil weeil has brought to
Mccormick County, which he cannot
know in a county where the boil wee
vii has caused hardly any damage as
yet, he would change his opinion.
There are a good many people
around Abbeville who are looking for
the man who said hat the boil wee
vii would be a blessing to the COM
munity. Instead of destroying one
fourth, or one-third, of the yield of
cotton as we were told the pest
would do, it has destroyed practical
ly the whole crop in many sections.
Unless a cold winter or a Merci-
full Providence saves Spartanburg
County from the invasion of the wee
vii, the editor of The Carolina Citi-
zen will shortly have reason to
change his mind about the advisable
ity Of finding a remedy for the dam
age done by the weevil.
There will, we imagine, be no
remedy found to exterminate the
weevil, but there is going to be
found in the next year or two, we
think, some preventive measure which
will allow the cotton farmers of this
section to grow cotton in such guam
titles as will guarantee a return
for the labor of the tenant farmers
and bring some income to the land
owners. This is the most anybody
expects to find. That does not mean
that we will produce big crops again.
Nobody expects that to be done.
Less and less lands will be planted
in cotton, and South Carolina will,
with all the preventive measures
which may be discovered, not grow
more than one-half to two-thirds Of
the crop of cotton grown before the
advent Of the weevil. 1t is going to
be more costly to grow cotton under
these preventive measures, because
less must be planted, and there must
be a greater outlay for fertilizers and
nn;con. while the amount of labor
necessary to grow a bale of cotton
must be increased.
The result of it all is that cotton
is going to command a higher price
than heretofore in normal times
Of ourse it would be worth a great
deal to counties like Spartanburg, il
these counties could continue to grow
normal crops without the extra ex
nense and the extra labor, while