Category

Boll Weevil

First appearing in Texas in 1892, the boll weevil had occupied the entirety of the state by 1922, causing cotton losses as high as 50%, and leading to decades of war against the pest.

Interviews

Narrator: Reggie JamesTitle: IPM and TPMDuration: 00:12:06Date: October 15, 2003Reggie James, the former director of Consumers Union's SW regional office, describes the effort to reduce the pesticides used in the fight against the boll weevil in Texas cotton fields.Narrator: Grover Williams, Sr.Title: Paris GreenDuration: 00:01:34Date: November 25, 1991Grover Williams, Sr., a farmer from Burton, Texas, remembers his grandfather treating their family cotton fields in the 1930s with Paris green arsenic dust, trying to prevent a boll weevil infestation. We are grateful to Mr. Williams, his interviewer, Dan Utley, and the custodian of the original recording, the Baylor University Institute for Oral History for sharing this material with the Texas Fauna Project.