The Chesterfield advertiser. [volume] (Chesterfield C.H., S.C.) 1884-1978, 1922-02-02
BY James A. Hollomon
(Staff Correspondent Atlanta Consti-
tution.)
Published by Permission of Atlanta
Constitution

Bryan, IexaS, Jan. Z4--tSpeclal)
The purpose of this tour of the cotton
belt Of Texas is to place before the
readers of The Constitution the plain,
unvarnished facts regarding cotton
production under boil weevil condi-
tions. My Investigations, therefore,
are not to be confined alone to the eX-
pertinent stations, where government
and state scientists have been for flf-
teen years warning against the men
. ace, and are even yet barraging the
pest with every new implement of
warfare that skill and persistence can
develop, but are to extend to the very
, fields and cotton plantations, where /
may hear from the man whose every
interest is at stake the plain, practi-
cal story of just how he has mastered
the most serious problem that has ev-
er confronted him-a problem that is
shaking Georgia and the southeast to-
day as none since the civil war.
The Boil Wecvil Mastered in Texas
And the boil weeyil has been mas
every cotton farmer in the state who
has had both the intelligence and the
energy to apply, in a business-like
systematic manner, the methods of
control that experience has taught to
be effective.
Indeed, not only has the weevil
been mastered here, but methods of
! cotton cultivation, from the prepara-
tion of the seed bed to the harvesting
Of the staple, have been of late so
improved, where painstaking care and
business intelligence in farming have
prevailed, that in many instances
production of the staple has been ac-
tually increased over pre-weevil days
this resulting from the intense cul-
tural lessons burned into the very
souls of men who once saw their only
| money crop vanish like snow in the
| tropics and who set about with fixed
jaws and gritted teeth to meet the
enemy and to conquer him; and they
did.
l have in mind a farmer at Mer-
|
produced 65 bales on 65 acres in
1921, with boil weevils as thick as
bees in a swarm" and the best he ev-
cr did before the bell weevil appear
ed was So bales. He "sweated blood"
to use homely expression-how-
ever, while he was learning the les
son. have signed statement from
this farmer that l shall publish later
on in this series.
Weevil In Texas Prevalent As Ever
1t must be borne in mind that the
boil weevil is just as prevalent in
Texas today as he ever was.
When he became serious menace
in 1907 along the Rio Grandc valley.
most pronounced in the Browaville
area, and swept more than a miiiio II
acres of boiling plants as clean as a
fire that sweeps through a sun-baked
prairie, the farmers became panic
stricken, just as they are in many sec
tions of Georgia today.
The weevil had been noticed in
negligible quantities in the Corrus
Cristi territory for years before. but
little attention had hecn paid to him.
Procastination, a human fr;;ilty,
had permitted the pest TO gradually
increase the area of infestion until all
at once, before anybody seemed to Sc
riously realize the consequences, he
had become a plague that left ruin
and desolation in his wake and struck
terror to the hearts of thousands of
planters.
With increased momentum the
weevil conquered millions of acres of
new territory in 1908, and again in
l9O9-and continued his march of
invasion until he covered every acre
of available ground in Texas cotton
belt in which climatic conditions
would permit of winter Information
and that is 90 per cent of the cotton
producing area of the state
He then crossed over into Louisiana
and into Mississippi and Arkansas and
Alabama, shooting across the Mis-
ssippi river as unconcernedly as if
ne had been first-class possenger on
the Southern Pacific's ferryboat at
New Orleans
In 1915 he appeared in Georgia
and the story is sad one
Gradually working his way up
from the southern end of the
state, where the winters were at first
more inviting, he has within the past
year, swarmed upon middle Georgia
like an unconquerable army of devas
tation, to illustrate, just one country
with normal production of $1,000
bales heretofore, in that section, fell
at his feet with production of only
l75 bales in 1921-a statement of
tact that is almost inconceivable.
Can Be Conquered In Ga. As In Tex.
But the boil wevil can be conouered