PROCEEDINGS OF THE BOLL WEEVIL CONVENTION. 21 



experience; they did the whole thing. Now, I think that is apt to take 

 hold of the people, and it is along such lines, that I hope to see suitable 

 legislation and appropriations will be made ; to demonstrate that if we do 

 not have the boll weevil, still we are to make 50 per cent, more cotton 

 than we have been making-. We will develop a better class of farmers. 

 It does not hurt anyway. 



Now, it is not for me to say anything about legislation. You have 

 your Congressmen here. They understand all the ins and outs of ihat 

 But if I had my way about it, I would put money into the hands of those 

 entomologists, enough to do a great deal more work than they have been 

 able to do. I would take up possibly some lines that Professor Morgan 

 spoke of. If the boll weevil should attack Louisiana, destroy the fields, 

 and pay for them, if necessary. Then I would put money into demon- 

 stration plants, so that these methods could be brought to the attention of 

 the people in every locality. There is no use in spending millions on the 

 great cotton agriculture, to have it hanging over our heads. The Ameri- 

 can people should adopt these methods. I want to see these things 

 adopted, and adopted right off, in order that American Agriculture, which 

 is now to the front, may be brought to the front still more. 



There is one point I want to speak of. There has been a great deal 

 said about Germany and other nations trying to produce cotton. It has 

 been my fortune to 'travel over the world, and to observe the cotton 

 plant.; and I tell you that America is going to control the cotton of the 

 world, I visited the cotton fields of Japan, and the agriculture there is 

 a perfect failure. I visited the cotton fields of China. They undertook 

 it there, and put up some cotton mills, and said with their cheap labor: 

 "We can manufacture cheaper than Americans, we can control the cotton 

 market." The last time I was there, I visited Shanghai four times the 

 last time I was there, I said to a friend. "What is the status of the cotton 

 mills now at Shanghai?" He said: "I cannot tell; they may have ?one 

 into bankruptcy again; they just came out of one bankruptcy a short time 

 ago." There are reasons why, with their cheap labor, they cannot com- 

 pete with us. The chairman regards any machine as a way to get a rake- 

 off. The great Chinaman, Tong Woo, Vice-Chancellor of two of the 

 upper provinces, has steel and iron mills. I enquired into that, and found 

 out that it costs them more to make a ton of steel, with the best machin- 

 ery, than to lay thirteen tons of American steel over there. Why? Be- 

 cause instead of using the machinery to save labor and reduce expenses, 

 he regards it as a nice thing to get a rake off. He charges more to the 

 operator, because the machine can do more. A Chinaman looks on the 

 other side of the world, and sees things exactly opposite to the way we 

 do. Now, that is just the way with cotton. You cannot get a Chinaman 

 to chop out his cotton. "Why," he says, "here are two stalks. Two stalks 



