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X .nuu 1 || v Established 1844. THE PRESS AND BANNER 4 ABBEVILLE, S. C. The Press and Banner Company Published Tri-Weekly Monday, Wednesday and Friday Entered as second-class matter j post office in Abbeville, S. C. Terms of Subscription: One Year $2.C Six Months $1.C Three Months * .? Foreign Advertising Represe"tati\ AMERICAN PRESS ASSOCIATIO FRIDAY, JANUARY 13, 1922 V CROP DIVERSIFICATION. We are all talking these days aboi crop diversification. We will not d versify, we fear, until we are force to do so. But we will be thus force< And when we are we may profit b the example of Allendale. We hare heretofore had a goo deal to say about the peanut indus try in that county. This industry, ac cording to reports which come to ui is now on a firm footing. The firs year, it is said, the?people overdid th 1- -r _i?j.: u,,?. ? !, won Ul j^iauuug ycaiiui>D( u ww w* past year a smaller acreage wa planted by each farmer and result have been satisfactory. , Now Allendale is one of the ne\ counties of the state. It is in fact th newest county in the state. It is al& the smallest, and it has a less amoun of taxable property than any othe county in the state, it is said, inot withstanding this Allendale Count; the past year produced and shippei the following: 33 cars of hogs, of which 23 car were co-operative cars?that is mor than one person was interested ii each car; 16,000 bushels of. oats; 114 cars of hay, (peanut, peavin and velvet bean varieties;) 8 cars of velvet beans; 1,000 bushels of rye; 10,000 bushels of peas; 6 cars of Irish potatoes; ; 8 cars of sweet potatoes. 2 cars of cabbage; 2 cars of beans; ' 10 cars of native cattle; 1300 cars of watermelons; 26 cars of cucumbers; and 26 cars of cantaloupes. That is the record from April lsl to sometime in December, we believe nee the last named date, other car of sweet potatoes have been shipped It is also known that a good deal o corn and other crops not mentione above have been shipped by privat parties, of which no record is kept. Not a little of the progress mad in that county is due to the effort of one of the best county demon stration agents in the state. He ha assumed a leadership which is india pensable to progress. That progress engendered of such leadership, ha shown that the people in the emalles and poorest county of the state cai make money and grow in prosperity without growing cotton. What Allendale has done Abbevilb can do. Ait that we need Is a 9piri of cooperation, a "ill to work, aw good leadership. - A COUNTY AGENT. bur suggestion for the employ ment of a county demonstratioi agent in this COUftty ha? tfl&t Witl an enthusiastic response. Number of farmers have approved the idea It is believed generally that a goo< fJoTTirmBtra-Hnn ocronf in /?nim+.' w;ll help us to go ahead in the mat ter of crop diversification in thi county. A meeting of some of those inter ested in farming was held here yes terday at which the delegation fror this county was requested to apprc priate as much as $1250 for securin the servicea of a good agent for th present year. That request will b laid before the meeting of farmers t be held here next Wednesday an they will be asked to take some a< tion in the matter. It is believed thi all the progressive farmers cf th county are in favor of the emploj ment of a good man for this work. We all know that the times ar hard and that taxes are as certai as they are hard to pay. But taxe do not seem to grow less, and th only way to meet them is to increas our ability to pay. The amount sue gested will take about one-fourth o ' " : i one mill. Each man who pays taxes on one thousand dollars will pay fif teen cents towards the salary of the agent, and that is not much, that is, if good is to be accomplished by his employment. The county demonstra tion agent is not a highly paid of ficial. He is required to own a car and operate it at his own expense. This costs about $750 a year, count up-keep, depreciation and running expenses. He receives $1500 from the state and federal government, and >0 i thus an agent in this county, if we '0 j appropriate $1250 would receive in 0; all $2750. Deducting the $760 for ? car expenses he ^ould receive a sal re ary of $2,000. Considering that a N ?nian to hold the position must be a graduate of an agricultural college, and must spend a good deal of mon ey on accouijl of traveling around he county'and elsewhere, it is evi dent that the salary is not large. We dislike to advocate the pay ment of any amount which will be a burden on the people, and it is a time to practice economy in matters of necessity, but we believe that a poor agent is the worst kind of econ omy, and if we are to have an agent here at all, we had better make such an appropriation as will secure the services of a good man. Such an agent cannot be secured for less than the amount suggested we believe. We have not talked with the mem bers of the delegation from this county. But we do not believe they are self-opinionated about the mat ter. "this being a matter for which the people at large must pay, they would likely be interested to know the it i ^ views 01 me people 01 ine county. r It might be well, therefore, for thej farmers in different parts of the ? county to write Senator Moore, or J j Representatives Putman and Cox, in care of the Senate or House, at Co lumbia, giving their views on this matter. 0 ' Of one thing however the people should be advised. If a county dem onstration agent is to be employed and if he is to do satisfactory work 8 the present year, he should be em ployed at once, so that he may get here and get down to work before the farming season opens. \ ? SPRAYING FROM AIR. i\ Some two weeks ago we said edit orially that stranger things than the fighting of boll weevils with airplanes might happen. Before the people hereabouts had quit smiling at the fllMr(7Pcfinn atona waro hoint* folron y "v4V wv,4*t> vw?ivm * to try the very experiment which we suggested, as will be seen from a I reading of the following article #tak j en from The New York Times: ^ "The long fight with the cotton boll weevil was nearing a crisis at the close of last season. The little pi rate was almost at the top line of ?he cotton zone, and apparently had the conquest of the former king of our commerce nearly in his grasp. Mil lions on many millions had been ^ spent by the Government and the ^ planters to" hold him back, only to ^ face failure year after year. "But now the weevil's days are said to be numbered. A powerful ally :s coming to the rescue. The weevil is to be fought by the airplane. "The Committees on Agriculture in House and Senate will this winter take up and discuss an appropriation for the purpose of utilizing-the avail able airplanes of the army in experi ments over a wide a^rea of test in spraying calcium arsenate to poison the weevil. "Tha Apartment of agriculture has taken up the matter and the details )f the problem of airplane spraying are being examined in the light of up-to-date experience. "The project of airplane spraying is based on a single experiment con ducted recently in Ohio with what must be regarded as complete suc ess. On the farm of Harry A. Carver, i- ,iear Troy, in that State, was a fine n block of Catalpa bungei, one of the >- familiar lawn trees, whose globe haped head with its dense shade of e j neart-snapea leaves, maKe it popular e nnd desirable. There were in the six o acre block 5,000 fine six-year old d trees, worth in the neighborhood of $25,000. Last June the catalpa it sphinx caterpillar suddenly fell on e this grove and within a short time de J- foliated it. . Machine spraying was tried with only partial success. The e grove, however, rallied, and under n the favorable growing conditions of :s the season renewed its leafage only e to be again attacked by the worms <e a second time in August. r-| "The problem appealed to ento if mologists generally in the State, at - y 'V-*' V," -- ? ? . r ? -*1 the State University, the experiment station and the local officers of Cleve land. Among the latter the City En tomologist, C. R. Neillie, a resource ful and indefatigable friend of trees, gave special attention to the woeful plight of the catalpas. To him came the happy thought of using the air plane. The best types of dust spray ers using gasoline engines could not get the .poison up into the tops of the trees and there the worms had the grove all to themselves. "With the remark that 'only birds could get the stuff up there' the thought flashed through Mr. Nellie's mind that it might be possible to do the job with an airplane. As quickly as he could get connection over the telephone with the army officers of the Air Service at McCook Field at Dayton, he stated the problem and asked if the army would be willing to cooperate in a trial of airplane spraying. First Lieutenant John A. MacReady, one of the eight engi neering students stationed there, hap pened to be the man to whom the appeal came. His instant answer was that if the matter had the approval of his senior officer, Major Maxwell Kirby at Fort Benjamin Harrison,' he would be at the service, of the en tomologists. Major Kirby also wel comed the job as one that the Air Service could do, and in a few days Mr. Nellie went down to Dayton and worked out with Edward Donnoy, the designer of the Engineering Di vision of the Air Service at McCook Field, the form of a distributor to be used on the airplane.^ "Happily no better place could have been resorted to than the Air | Service Engineering School at Day iton. Mr. Dormoy is an expert in de sign in connection with airplanes, and he soon hit on a simple arrange ment for managing the spray of the dust. This was a hopper to hold 200 pounds of calcium arsenate in the form of a fine powder ground so that 95 per cent, of it would pass flimnnrVi a ttriro oiava nn4-k 1 A AOfk Vtuww^u ? nuv 0t?T? ItlVM IVjVV V meshes or holes to the square inch? about the fineness of phosphate rock prepared for ordinary agricultural purposes. This hopper was attached to the side of the plane to the rear and below the occupants so that they would escape t?ie dust. A small reel with spoonlike arms operated by a crank was built into the lower part of the hopper to feed the dust and get it spread out into the currents of air created by the propeller blades of the plane. "When the day came for the ex periment to bg tried out Lieutenant MacReady flew up from Dayton to T^oy, about twenty miles, bringing Mr. Dormoy with him. J. S. Houston, Associate Entomologist at the Ohio Experiment Station under Professor H. A. Gossard, was assigned to go in the plane with Lieutenant MacReady to work the crank of the distributer. The wind was blowing strong, and it was found that the plane need only to pass up and down at the side of the plot of trees; the wind took the powder over and spread it thorough ly. "Long after the plane had passed the grove for the last time the dust was slowly settling down on the trees. Like a trail of long white cloud the poison was wafted upon every leaf and twig throughout the plantation. Effective dusting, Mr. Houston says, was accomplished over a space 600 feet wide, the dust being found 150 feet on the far side of the grove, the grove itself being 400 feet wide. The plane moved out 50 feet from the trees at the windward side of the grove and from 20 to 30 feet above I thfe tops of the trees. "Three days after the grove was sprayed by the airplane the ento molofrists went over it and found that they had made a complete job of it. Mr. Houston says that 99 per cent, of the caterpillars had been killed; and were strewn on limbs and trunks and ground everywhere, and the place was indescribably nasty with the re mains. At the rate of time required for the six acres, it was estimated that an airplane can dust thirty acres a minute, so far as the actual time of flying and dusting is concerned. In the most conservative computation, with the co-operation of the entomol ogists and field experts, a machine ould, it is said, accomplish in regu Jar systematic work fully twenty nes as much spraying as the best id most effective form of machine spraying now used in orchard or shade tree insect control. "It is on this decidedly interesting trial of the-airplane in spraying that the Department of Agriculture is ex pecting to build up the plan to fight ! US 'the cotton boll weevil. There are many details that etand in the way of such ah effort In the first place spraying for the boll weevil is done in the night, when the dew has gath ered on the plant and the insect in taking a drink gets the poison into his 'pantry.' At first the field men of the department said the idea of us ing the airplane for spraying cotton could not be made to work because of this condition. But the army air ser vice men at once said night flying un der the suggested conditions was feasible. " 'We have men trained for just this sort of flying,' said one officer who took up the subject. 'We have observation planes, bombing planes, pursuit planes, all planned for night work, and the service is full of men who are equal to all that is called for in this proposition.' "The greater difficulties are likely to come in organizing work of such a peculiar liaison character between the flight service and the field ex perts, the' scientists who must study out local conditions and the commu- ' nities of planters. The general plan, so far as it has been sketched out thus far, proposes a belt of flight stations distributed across the en tire length of the cotton belt. The ' airplane assigned to cotton spray 1 work can move from one part of its 1 special field under its own power and i carry a moderate load of the poison < dust Before the actual day of spray- i ing in any qjie community the field 1 agents are expected to organize over ] the telephone, by means of newspap* 1 er notices, Post Office posters and the 1 liberal commandeering of 'flivver' couriers. "Obviously, the first trial of spray ing from the air must be experimen tal. It'is hardly possible to estimate in advance the cost of such work. It might prove impracticable. Calci um arsenate costs about ten cents 1 a pound, and the season's cost of the s poison and the labor of putting it on 1 with the cart sprayer now generally 1 used is between $4 and |5. There < are not a few nlanters who ?orav ao < thoroughly and so often in the hope of ultimate complete eradication of the pest that their avenge spray costs are around (15 an acre. These are exceptional, however, and even1 maraigraiiUiUEfiimiifimn Invest You I With The. OF Safe You ca $100.0 jfj Interest Beg 1 Next St I p Building a i } G. A. NEUFFER, . j j Preside? gaiimuiugrafararaigigii^ the small planter can carry his patd through a season with an expeudi ture of not to exceed $6 an acre to spraying. Usually, the trouble is h< does not have the $6 for the firs acre. < "The work will have to b? carriei on by the general government with out any attempt at dividing the worl with the planter. First of all, th spraying must be as general as poe sible in every section. It would no be necessary to use compulsion, a was done in Texas, when the govern ment and the State authorities join ed to exterminate the pink cottoi boll worm, and planters were requir ed to suspend cotton farming am were compensated for their loss fron the public treasury. It is concede* that all planters would gladly com into any general spraying plan a might be proposed for the use of air planes. By some it is nrged that th planters should themselves unite am buy airplanes and conduct communi ty spraying at their own expense This idea ^ill no? make much prog reae. / t "The project is one for. the Feder al Government to start and carr; through. The Government alone ha the money, the brains* and the powe: to do what is needed to be done. Thi loss in a single year of substantially one-half of the ^entire cotton cro] and the total cut down to about th amount required for export, with th< menaced consequent loss in foreigi trade and the diminution of the sup 1 ply of raw cotton to the domesti< textile trade, i| enough to suggeel the importance of the complete Fed sral control of the project The u? jf the airplane; in forest protectioi suggests the ground for drafting th< lir service into the protection of on< >f the most important argricultura nterests we have. Modifications latei nay be made in the organization anc She' upkeep, but in the experimental stage the general Government shoulc teep control. The excellent field aer rice now at work on the problem un< ier the masterly guidance of B. R Coadof the Bureau of Entomology :an alone under Federal control tx }f the best service to the project ii it is to be undertaken at alL . . . .{>' U "It is believed that the army aii service would welcome the proapert waaRtmmR&m TV /I r Money i ...IT WILL BE and Profit in save from $1 0 a month w ins With Your i ;ries Opens 20th, 1922. v . *JI V AAn I JIU LU(U1 I of Abbeville. it. Se< [alitnugiiUHigizraiiiigiHfi! ; ..... I . . # . ... X', yi. . / ' gvj v K* -<f i 1 of taking up the work suggested. , There are now 11,000 enlisted men I / * in the air service, and over 300 ca~ det flyers usually under training. Out of this large force there should be little difficulty in getting the few score pilots that would be required for the system of fiyiag fields that would make up the experiment over the entire cotton belt. "It is estimated that one airplane - would be able, if stationed in its own theatre of work permanently, to >' spray 500 to 1,000 acres a day and limited by physical conditions of weather and wind, could be effective in an area of 30,000 to 100,000 acres This would compare with the govern ment work of 75,000 in the season of 1919. Cost comparison is some- ' thing to be worked out later, but' ifc , is clear that thepe may be unforseen ;i economies m air spraying raft that possibly in the end, depending on the thoroughness and .complete ex tent of organization, it May be cheap- - er than the present method of cart spraying. - ; ; ( "There are economic phases of the cotton industry if airplane spray ing should come into vogne tint would doubtless tend tostabilfce and enlarge operations. It is to be v hoped that airplane spraying would , in tinfc, if prosecuted Wholehearted ly and effectively, not! only screen as growing erop from the weevil so'aa. to seeure a paying yield, hut go even, v further'and in some plftces entirely ':} } 'eradicate the weevil; or, if not that be such a large and powerful factor of control that intensive method* \ auxiliary to the airplape spraying might do more than simply effect a control up to the pyaiag point I* other words, the public opinion be- ' hind such a proposition should oof* port a generous mtUnre ofnpradj. Haire in the hope of eradication." . iw.Vi . .''-i Hoapita] without -wards, for poor people, is being baih in New York. \; , -SEB- V-j ; .A rvH ' C . ./ - : ;: , - M i V ; "MOTHER OVIRE" V .V- OPERA HOUSE V * -TODAY mm* .SATURDAY! V Viv?5e. ADMISSION 35c. V l.UU to . ith us. .. First Dollar, January If Association i| j. s. MORSE, cretary & Treasurer.