Picking Weevils and Squares
The following is the substance of a number of letters from Mississippi farmers relative to picking weevils and squares: Mr. T. L. Rush says that the first time he caught an average of fifty weevils per acre and the second time twenty-eight. The cost of picking the weevils was about fifty cents per acre. He gathered the punctured squares seven times at a cost of about $2.50 per acre. Mr. C. S. Rowland picked the weevils and squares on thirty-five acres of cotton at a cost of $43.60. Mr. J. W. Shelton picked an average of sixty-five weevils per acre off his little cotton for four weeks at a cost of 25 cents per hundred. Mr. J. M. Crawford found 268 weevils the first time; two hundred and fifty the second time, one hundred and ninety-seven the third time and one hundred and fifty the fourth time. He gathered one bushel of squares the first time and three bushels a second time. The cost was about $20.00 on the ten acres. Mr. A. W. Harrell picked over two acres of cotton three times and got one hundred and fifty weevils and seven hundred squares. It cost him about $2.00 per acre.
Profitable Farming in South
G. H. Alford, one of the agents of the government representing the agricultural department, talked to business men and planters at the Vicksburg Cotton Exchange last week and said some good things, among them the following:
“The planters who keep their laborers and force them to grow plenty of corn, rice, potatoes, molasses, hogs and poultry for home use and to cultivate say six or seven acres of cotton, according to government instructions, will grow more prosperous every year. They will not grow as much cotton, but it will not be necessary for them to send two-thirds of the money obtained for cotton to other sections of the country to pay for farm products. Boll weevil or no weevil, prosperity will be the rule in Warren county when all of her people live on the products of the farms and grow cotton as a surplus crop. I meet planters every day who are anxious to sell their plantations. They tell me they are in debt and will never be able to raise the mortgage. They say that the boll weevil is here to destroy cotton—their money crop. They are mistaken on two counts. Profitable crops of cotton can be grown in spite of the boll weevil and cotton is not now a surplus money crop. They will grow profitable crops of cotton as a surplus crop in a year or so. They will then all live at home and grow say two-thirds as much cotton. The cotton money will then raise the mortgages instead of paying for corn, bacon, lard, mules, hay, etc. The boll weevil means diversified farming and stock raising. This means fertile soil and good farming. Fertile soil and good farming means high priced land. The boll weevil will probably keep the price of land down for two or three years, but diversified agriculture and the raising of good hogs, cattle, mules, horses and other stock will force the price up and up until it will sell for four or five times its present market value. Let every planter hold a tight grip on his land. There is no excuse for the blues. The northern farmers are getting rich. They cannot grow cotton. They cannot grow sugar cane, rice and many other crops that can be grown in Warren. Any crop will grow here that the northerners can grow. Diversified farming and stock raising and the growing of cotton as a surplus crop will put Warren county on the high road to genuine prosperity.
Pigs idea of heaven