| |
| Tex
Ritter sang this lament decades ago: |
“Oh, the boll weevil
is a little black bug,
come from Mexico they say,
come all the way to
Texas,
just looking for a place to stay,
just looking for a home, just
looking for a home.” |
And the weevil, actually
a beetle, found it, much to the chagrin of East
Texas cotton growers.
The earliest specimens appeared in the area
of Vera Cruz, Mexico, about
1840 and then moved northward. By the 1890s the migration had brought the critter
as far as Corpus Christi.
|
| The
weevil begins its life cycle light colored but darkens as it matures, and measures
approximately one-four inch in length. The weevils hibernate during winter, then
emerge when cotton plants are blooming and
developing bolls. They burrow into the boll, consume some of it for sustenance,
and then lay eggs inside the boll, which soon drops off the plant. The larvae
hatch to continue the cycle; meanwhile the cotton
farmer is minus one boll of cotton for each
invasion. Cotton boll weevil infestation cut
yields by hundreds of thousands of bales. The consequence was explained in another
verse of Tex Ritter’s Song: |
“Well the merchant
got half the cotton,
the boll weevil got
the rest,
Didn’t leave the farmer’s wife,
but one old cotton dress,
And it’s full of holes, its full of holes.” |
The boll weevil reached
the Sabine River by early in the twentieth
century, then continued across the South. The weevil’s lack of toleration of hard
freezes kept it in southern climes, but it was not susceptible to available pesticides.
Texas
legislators offered prizes for a solution to the weevil problem, unsuccessfully.
Some suggested that farmers cease planting cotton
for several years to interrupt the weevil’s cycle, hardly a suitable solution
for the farmers who lacked alternative ways to make a living. Eventually calcium
arsenate and fluorides offered some relief from the pest’s devastation. |
“If anybody should
ask you,
who it was that made this song,
Just tell him it was a poor farmer,
With a pair of blue overalls on,
Ain’t got nothome, ain’t got no home.” |
© Archie P. McDonald
All
Things Historical > January 1,
2006 column
A syndicated column in over 40 East Texas newspapers
This
column is provided as a public service by the East Texas Historical Association.
Archie P. McDonald is director of the Association and author of more than 20 books
on Texas. | |
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