38 HEARINGS BEFORE COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE. 
The stamping out of sporadic cases has already been touched upon. 
It would not only be necessary, of course, while the flames are 
destroying one place, that you should go and endeavor to eal them 
out at once, but if in a great conflagration a spark should fall miles 
away, common prudence would require that you rush there at once, 
and stop another fire, and it would be folly not to do so. If the weevil 
appears in Louisiana in sporadic instances, stamp it out, even though 
it costs the Government considerable money. It saves in the long run. 
So as to the experimental stations. I tell you a great benefit would 
result. Our people would be guided by the demonstrations that 
would be made there. Already we are sending off for cotton seed. 
One man will tell us the King seed is the best, another that the Truitt 
seed is the best, another that the Shiner seed is the best, another that 
the big-boll Russellis the best. The result is there is confusion among 
the people, all seeking to better their condition. The Government 
could come in with its experimental farms, and in a little while dem- 
onstrate that this cotton would be adapted to the particular section, 
and another cotton to another section, and thus the Government would 
be teaching people and leading them out of the confusion that now 
prevails. ; 
Gentlemen of the committee, the matter has already been presented 
from the technical standpoint of Doctor Howard and his associate. It 
has been referred to by Mr. Burgess, and I believe it is unnecessary 
to do more than touch upon this one point. Occasionally inquiry is 
made about diversification and changing our crop. That is not prac- 
ticable. Could the people of Dakota abandon the growing of wheat? 
Could the great Middle West cease growing corn? Could southern 
Louisiana and Texas abandon the rice and the sugar culture? No 
more could we in Texas cease the cultivation of cotton. The only 
thing that has promised anything in the way of rotation is, as sug- 
gested by Doctor Galloway, alfalfa. We are all growing a little 
alfalfa, increasing it as we can; but here is the reason that no change 
in methods can be adopted. Cotton is a money crop. Men have got 
to get advances to makeacrop on. Alfalfa is an uncertain crop. 
The rains come and destroy it. They are not prepared to put it under 
the houses, and it is a little crop. But they advance money upon a 
cotton crop, and when the poor man comes in to give a mortgage it is 
put down “50 acres in cotton and 10 acres in corn,” and a little alfalfa 
or pea vines or something is included in the security on which he is 
able to get the advances to make his crop. There can be no change 
as long as the rays of the sun come as they do and as long as the 
seasons of Texas remain as they are. There may be small changes, 
but that is the crop that nature’s God provided for Texas, and I think 
the efforts of man ought to be made to maintain it as the great crop 
of the South, because it is the crop that is profitable to us and bene- 
ficial to the nation at large. 
Mr. Havucen. Colonel, what has the State done for your experi- 
ment stations? 
Mr. Frexp. The State has done nothing more than a small work at 
the agricultural college. It has offered a reward of $50,000 for the 
discovery of some remedy for the total destruction of the weevil, 
The Cuarrman. Then, naturally, there are a good many people at 
TM Beco, Th t work on it; but 1 
r. Freip. They are at work on it; but I tell you a or : 
this Department could do. This large reward i duveleped all the 
