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From: Helms, Douglas - Washington, DC [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, September 01, 2009 7:04 PM To: Fúgate, Susan Subject: RE: Doug Heims' PubÜcation Susan, i grant permission for ttie National Agricultural Library to provide access on ther website to the digitai copy for my dissertation, "Just Lookin' For A Home." Thank you for doing this. Douglas Helms Resource Economics and Social Sciences Division National Historian USDA/NRCS/Room 6149-S P.O. Box 2890 Washington. DC 20013-2890 [email protected] (W) 202-720-3766 Fax 202-720-6473 THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES JUST LOOKIN' FOR A HOME: THE COTTON BOLL WEEVIL AND THE SOUTH by DOUGLAS HELMS A Dissertation s\ibmitted to the Department of History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy U/. R >-?^j^-^ Professor Directing Dissertation J^^, ftl3 Smithsonian Institution '^ UlS. Department of Agriculture Copyright (c) 1977 Douglas Helms December, 1977 (A INTRODUCTION The annual yearning to return home for Christinas created an unusual sight in 1973. Trains once again ran with loaded passenger compartments and bus depots were awash with people who normally disdained such mundane transportation. Restrictions.on gasoline sales during the oil embargo forced automobile-dependent Am.ericans to overtax the nation's common carriers. Textile manufacturers, too, had come to rely heavily on petroleum for fibers and nervously sought additional supplies of what television advertisements deem "nature's fiber." The oil embargo; increased export sales, especially to the People's Republic of China; and the fact that much of the nation's cotton crop had already been contracted for on futures sent prices soaring. Farmers selling cotton during December 19 7 3 received nearly double the price paid the preceding year. Most southerners hardly noticed the phenomenon. In times past when cotton was "Religion, Politics, Law, Economics, and Art," jubilation during the holiday season would have Quoted in Rupert B. Vance, Human Factors in Cotton Culture: A Study in the Social Geography of the American South (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1929), p. vii. 11 iii been widespread. The price of cotton concerned not only farmers, but practically all southerners, regardless of profession. The southern economy revolved around it. Weather was the chief topic of concern because weather determined the region's economic health. Then the boll weevil came. The pest could reduce the South's income as effectively as a poor crop, or conversely, an abundant crop and resulting low prices. Boll weevil depressions struck communities all across the South and sent waves throughout the region's economic and social structure. Banks failed, land prices dropped, farmers turned to other crops, landlords and merchants refused to furnish tenants for the coming season, and some tenants took to the road in pursuit of a livelihood. The intensity of the impact and the longevity of the changes varied depending on the geo- graphic conditions and the ingenuity (or lack of it) in any particular community. The knowledge and assistance of archivists and librarians are essential to a successful research endeavor. Those who were generous with their time and skill were the staff of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Miriam Jones of the Alabama Department of Archives and History, Carolyn Wallace of the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina, Cornelius "Mac" McKissick of the National Agricultural Library, and IV my colleagues at the National Archives, Helen Ulibarri and Harold Pinkett. The U.S. Department of Agriculture provided svunmer employment at their Cotton Insects Research Station at Tallulah, Louisiana, where I researched that station's records. The station's director, Tomie Cleveland, was most helpful in opening up the world of field investigations in boll weevil research to me. The Smithsonian Institution granted a year-long predoctoral fellowship. The insti- tution's curator of agricultural implements, John T. Schlebecker, and Wayne D. Rasmussen of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's history office directed the research diiring the period. They also read and offered helpful suggestions on the dissertation manuscript and served on the defense committee. I would like to thank professors John H. Moore, James P. Jones, Paul Strait, and Burke G. Vanderhill for reading the manuscript and serving on the committee. Special thanks goes to William W. Rogers for his patience and the nxomerous improvements in the final copy of the dissertation. Lee Lockwood proofread the manuscript. Faye Helms Griffin and Sue Urbanski typed the drafts and eliminated mistakes that might have otherwise appeared in the final copy. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION ii Chapter I. A LITTLE BLACK BUG IN SOUTH TEXAS .... 1 II. AWAKENING TO THE PROBLEM 32 III. NO EASY SOLUTIONS 63 IV. GOVERNMENT RESEARCH 106 V. KNAPP OR HUNTER: WHO SHOULD SPEAK TO THE FARMER? 163 VI. TROUBLE IN TEXAS 186 VII. TO THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER AND BEYOND . 221 VIII. MIGRATION AND DIVERSIFICATION 277 IX. A NEW PEST FOR THE OLD COTTON BELT . 300 X. FIGHTING BOLL WEEVILS 322 XI. "MR. BILLY BOLL WEEVIL" 363 XII. A BLESSING IN DISGUISE? 389 APPENDIXES 404 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY 406 CHAPTER I A LITTLE BLACK BUG IN SOUTH TEXAS The United States Department of Agriculture readied itself in 19 76 for yet another program predicated on the eventual eradication of the cotton boll weevil. The Economic Research Service, commenting on the "Environmental Statement," questioned the assertion that the boll weevil is "the most economically important agricultural pest in the United States." During most of the twentieth century the assertion would have gone uncontested. There was, in fact, much evidence to support it. The National Cotton Council, an admittedly biased observer, credits the boll weevil with the loss of $12 billion to the nation's economy since 189 2, with current losses ranging from $125 million to $224 million yearly. It has been and remains, in the words of a prominent entomologist, "one of the most complex, challenging problems confronting the U.S. cotton industry and the U.S. scientific com- 3 munity." The current utilization of more insecticides Environmental Statement for Trial Boll Weevil Eradication Program, Animal Plant Health Inspection Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture (Washington, D.C., June 1976), pp. 2, 277. ^Ibid. ^Ibid., p. 228. 2 on boll weevil control than on any other insect or insect complex, in a public atmosphere increasingly aware of the ultimate dangers of reliance on such chemicals, increases 4 the complexity of devising controls. The cotton boll weevil, limited in its destruc- tiveness to a single plant and restricted to only a part of the nation, came quickly to the nation's attention. The dependence of the southern population on the crop affected elevated the cotton boll weevil to a social and economic prominence that it might not otherwise have attained. Most Americans, unaware of the boll weevil's present importance in cotton production or of its con- tinued existence, attest to its historical importance by recognizing the name as an important insect pest of the past. The Department of Agriculture received the first indication of the boll weevil's potential importance to the country's cotton industry in 1894. A distressed citizen of Corpus Christi, Texas, C. H. DeRyee, wrote the Commissioner of Agriculture describing the dif- ficulties of the farmers confronted with a new pest. DeRyee's appraisal of how the weevil damaged cotton was exceedingly perceptive for its time: 4 Ibid., p. 2. The "Top" crop of cotton in this section has been very much damaged and in some cases almost entirely destroyed by a peculiar weevil or bug which by some means destroys the squares and small bolls. Our farmers can combat the cotton worm but are at loss to know what to do to overcome this pest. They claim the ordinary methods of poisoning for cotton worm have no effect on these bugs. They probably deposit their eggs in the square and their larvae enter the boll as soon as sufficiently formed and are there out of reach of the poison.6 DeRyee sent specimens of the weevil to the department, and the Entomologist of the United States, Leland 0. Howard, attempted to determine if the species had been previously identified, or whether it was new to the entomological community. The new insect proved a mystery to the entomologists in the Department of Agriculture. Equally perplexed was Henry Ulke, a prominent entomologist of Washington interested in beetles. Ulke forwarded the specimens to one of his numerous entomological correspondents. Dr. George Horn of Philadelphia, America's foremost beetle authority. Horn then forwarded the specimen to The cotton produced by the squares at the top of the plant; also the last squares produced. Since weevils multiply during the svmmier, they are more destructive of the last squares. g C. H. DeRyee to the Commissioner of Agriculture, October 3, 1894, "Correspondence, 1894-1897," Records of the Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine, Record Group 7, National Archives, Washington, D.C. Hereafter citations to records in the National Archives will include the abbreviation RG for the record group, fol- lowed by the record group number, and NA. Dr. August Salle in Paris, who provided the determination. Salle's reply provided also the generic name, Anthonomous grandis (Boheman). The Swedish entomologist, Carl H. Boheman, had first described and classified the insect in 1843 when he received specimens from Vera Cruz, Mexico. The German entomologist Eduard Suffrian had made a similar discovery in Cuba in 1871. There were then three specimens of the insect available to the scientific com- o munity, all in European museums. Further investigation by the Department of Agri- culture in October 1894 revealed that the Department had also received previous notice of the insect from one of its employees.