36 | HEARINGS BEFORE COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE. 
The Cuarrman. The worth of the cotton after being baled? 
Mr. Howarp. Exactly. 
Mr. Burueson. Mr. Chairman, Col. Scott Field, who represents in 
Congress one of the rich agricultural districts of our State, is here, 
and I hope you will hear him. 
The Cuarrman. We shall be glad to hear Colonel Field. 
STATEMENT OF HON. SCOTT FIELD, REPRESENTATIVE FROM 
TEXAS. 
Myr. Frevp. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, the time 
was when a southern member would hesitate to go to the Government 
asking relief, even though the damage was exceedingly great. Ibelieve 
it was stated by Bob Toombs that he represented Georgia twenty years 
and he never drew a dollar out of the National Treasury. Times have 
changed, and we have modified our views. We do not come to the 
National Government as petitioners, but we come looking for aid that 
will be cheerfully extended, when it will be beneficial to a very large 
number of the citizens of the country. 
When you consider the calamity that threatens this great industry 
of the South, a crop which brings into the Government more than a 
million dollars for every working day, and supplies employment to so 
large a number of our people, North and South, when a great industry 
of this sort is threatened, I believe the representatives of this great 
Government will respond liberally if we can show that benefits will 
result. 
It is difficult to conceive of the damage that is being done or the 
danger that threatens by asking the question, What percentage of the 
cotton crop of Texas, or the South, has been destroyed? Texas, with 
her immense domain, with the little aid she receives from the Indian 
Territory, produces one-third of the cotton crop of this country. 
The damage from the boll weevil has not extended itself all over the 
cotton-growing section of Texas, although it has invaded 101 counties 
of the 200 organized counties of the State; but it is very much worse 
in some sections than in others. When it strikes the river bottoms, 
the Brazos, the Colorado, the Trinity, and all those rivers there, it is 
almost total destruction. Far out on the prairie lands where the 
droughts prevail to some extent the injury is much less, and so when 
you come to the percentage, it is not so very great, not sufficient to 
excite the alarm of people looking at it as the amount that is destroyed 
in the State of Texas or in the South at large; but I want to call atten- 
tion to the very great damage which has resulted in the particular 
localities. 
I take my little town and the county in which I live upon the Brazos 
River, and J am appalled at the results that this destructive agent has 
produced there. Not only that, but I know that it will extend itself, 
because that is the experience of practical men and scientists. and 1 
look to the very grave damage that will result to all the southern 
country, taking these particular places along the rivers as an index of 
what it will do. 
The town in which I live is accustomed to ship from 20,000 to 24.000 
bales of cotton. This year we will not receive 5,000 bales. In eon- 
nection with my brother we plant 800 acres, certainly expecting a 
a return of 600 bales. We will not get 100 bales. When you think 
