Houston and Jardine; Herbert Hoover, 
when he was Secretary of Commerce; 
Daniel C. Roper, Secretary of Commerce; 
Thomas R. Marshall, Vice-President of 
the United States; senators, congress- 
men, governors; directors of extension, 
experiment station directors; and many 
others. 
Delegations of farmers, county agents, 
vocational agriculture teachers and other 
agricultural workers visit the farms 
throughout the growing and harvesting 
season each year and many have come 
to think of the Coker organization as a 
free educational institution that teaches 
the most modern farming methods in 
existence. Twice each year a delegation 
of negro farmers from nearby Orange- 
burg County goes to Hartsville and al- 
ways begins its visits with a prayer. In 
some years as many as 7,000 people have 
visited the farm. 
e The Hartsville Operations 
The Coker farms, comprised of ap- 
proximately 7,000 acres of land, are 
made up of 13 different farming units 
or plantations located in the vicinity of 
Hartsville, situated on the extreme north- 
ern boundary of the Carolina Coastal 
Plain and the southern border of the 
Sand Hill Belt. The soil is of a sandy 
loam type of medium fertility and the 
flat fields are bordered by tall, dark 
long-leaf pines. 
Of the 4,000 acres under cultivation, 
1,800 are planted to cotton and of this 
acreage more than 1,500 are devoted ex- 
clusively to breeding, testing and in- 
crease. More than 500 acres are planted 
to hybrid corn, 115 acres to flue cured 
cigarette type tobacco, 600 acres to small 
grains, 300 acres to shatter resistant soy- 
beans, 100 acres to the famous Darling- 
ton County Garrison watermelons, and 
additional acreage to sweet potatoes and 
sesame. 
e Mississippi-Arkansas Operations 
In addition to the farming operations 
at Hartsville, Coker’s Pedigreed Seed 
Company is growing under contract a 
sizable acreage of cotton in the Piedmont 
section of South Carolina, in Mississippi, 
and at Forrest City, Ark. This contract 
cotton is grown under the personal su- 
pervision of Coker employees and is cer- 
tified as registered breeder foundation 
stock by Crop Improvement Associations 
of the states where it is grown. The Ar- 
kansas-Mississippi operations were begun 
by the company in 1946. Extensive breed- 
ing and test experiments on soils heavily 
infested with wilt organisms are being 
conducted in this area. This work is 
under the direction of H. Maurice Larri- 
more, experienced plant breeder. 
e Coker Cottons Are Popular 
The great popularity of Coker cottons 
is indicated by a remark attributed to 
a South Carolina school boy who, when 
asked in a test to name three essentials 
of good farm crops, replied, “Good soil, 
good cultivation, and Coker’s pedigreed 
seed. 
According to estimates of Extension 
cotton specialists, 95 percent of North 
Carolina’s cotton acreage is planted in 
Coker 100 Wilt or its parent strain Coker 
100; more than 95 percent of South Caro- 
lina’s; 50 percent of Georgia’s; and 40 
percent of Alabama’s. These specialists 
estimate that in 1949, 3,172,000 acres 
were planted in Coker 100 Wilt cotton 
in those four states. Another 500,000 
acres of Coker cotton were grown else- 
where in the Cotton Belt in 1949, a large 
part of it in the Mississippi Delta. Coker 
100 Wilt was introduced in the spring of 
1942 and it is said that more than one 
out of every 10 acres of cotton in the 
United States is planted to this one va- 
riety. 
The Present Management 
WHEN DAVID R. COKER died in 1938 
the management of the company passed 
into hands that had been well trained 
over a long period of years to take over 
that task. George J. Wilds, who had been 
with Mr. Coker since 1908, was named 
president and managing director. He had 
been made director of plant breeding in 
1921, and has been treasurer since 1947. 
e Robert R. Coker 
Robert R. Coker, “Mr. D. R.’s” oldest 
son, is vice-president and secretary of 
the company and has been in charge of 
sales since 1932. Although not a trained 
plant breeder like his father, Robert R. 
Coker possesses a number of the traits 
that made his father one of the South’s 
great agricultural leaders. He graduated 
with a B.A. degree from the University 
of South Carolina in 1928, at which time 
he became associated with his father in 
the seed company. He was placed in 
charge of sales in 1932 and named vice- 
president and secretary when his father 
died in 1938. He has been president of 
J. L. Coker and Company since 1941, and 
is vice-president of the Hartsville Oil 
Mill. He is a director of the Bank of 
Hartsville; Hartsville Cotton Mill, of 
which his father was one of the found- 
ers; Palmetto Oil Mill, Bishopville, S. C.; 
Greenville Oil Mill, Greenville, S. C.; 
Sonoco Products Company, and Egypt 
Farms, Inc. He has been an advisor to 
the board of directors of the National 
Cotton Council since 1945 and was 
named a member of the National Advi- 
sory Committee to the Research and 
Marketing Act in 1946 (now the Agri- 
cultural Research Policy Committee, 
USDA). He was the first president of 
the South Carolina Farm Bureau in 
1944, is a director of the Coker College 
Foundation, president of the Darlington 
County Agricultural Society, founded in 
1846, and a member of Alpha Tau Omega. 
Robert Coker, like his father, is deeply 
concerned with the problems of the South 
and devotes much of his time to the larger 
matters affecting agriculture. Naturally, 
he and his associates are not indifferent 
about the future of the seed company; 
but at Coker’s the men who inherited 
“Mr. D. R.’s” mission, his aims and his 
ideals, seek always to achieve for the 
cotton states an economy in which live- 
stock, winter cover crops, the scientific 
use of fertilizer, and the proper balance 
of cotton with other crops will lift South- 
ern farm families to new high levels of 
comfort and well being as guardians of 
our basic wealth, the soil. 
e George J. Wilds 
George J. Wilds, president, plant 
breeder and managing director of the 
company, holds A.B. and LL.D. degrees 
from the University of South Carolina, 
an A.M. from Cornell, and a D.Sc. from 
Clemson College. He was awarded a 
testimonial for distinguished service to 
agricultural development of South Caro- 
lina by Clemson in 1932; a medallion by 
the Association of Southern Agricultural 
Workers for “years of distinguished 
service” to Southern agriculture in 1947; 
and in 1948 was given the South Caro- 
lina American Legion distinguished serv- 
ice award. He is a member of the Amer- 
ican Association for the Advancement of 
Science, South Carolina Academy of Sci- 
ence, American Phytological Society, 
South Carolina Seedsmen’s Association 
(president in 1947), the Darlington 
County Agricultural Society (president 
in 1945-47), Southern Agricultural Work- 
ers Association, Omicron Delta Kappa, 
Phi Beta Kappa, and Sigma Xi. 
The South is fortunate in having, 
among the many fine plant breeding or- 
ganizations that have given the farmer 
so many more profitable varieties of cot- 
ton and other crops, men who are so 
devoted to their work that personal gain 
may be said to be a consideration of 
secondary importance. George J. Wilds 
is an outstanding example of such devo- 
tion. Mr. Coker, when he told Mr. Wilds 
that he wanted him to have stock in the 
seed company, warned that it might not 
be worth very much as a revenue-produc- 
ing proposition. “This,” he said, refer- 
ring to the company, “is an eleemosynary 
institution and we will put the profits 
back into our breeding work.” 
The Door Is Always Open 
IT IS SAID of D. R. Coker that the door 
to his office was never closed to any man, 
white or black, who wanted to talk with 
him. Thousands of farmers took advan- 
tage of this open-door policy to sit with 
the eminent plant breeder to discuss 
everything from pedigreed seed to the 
need of the children for a better diet, 
more clothes, and better educational fa- 
cilities. 
Today, at Hartsville, that policy of 
never being too occupied with affairs of 
business to counsel with those the ergan- 
ization is pledged to serve still prevails. 
George Wilds, we know from personal 
experience, is almost never the sole oc- 
cupant of his office. He is either enter- 
taining visitors there or somewhere on 
the farm showing them the results of 
the work “Mr. D. R.” began nearly a 
half century ago. 
e A Powerful and Lasting Influence 
It is also said of David R. Coker that 
he thought more of the South’s welfare 
than he did of his own or the company’s. 
Nearly every man who knew “Mr. D. R.” 
will tell you he is the greatest figure 
Southern agriculture has produced. They 
have in mind not merely his success as 
a plant breeder, but what might be 
termed his even greater success as a 
powerful and lasting influence in the 
South’s whole economic progress. 
For example, when Dr. W. W. Long, 
who was then South Carolina’s director 
of extension work, first hit on the idea 
of teaching agriculture and home eco- 
nomics to 4-H Club boys and girls in the 
rural schools of the state, he disclosed 
later at a meeting of farmers that, while 
he believed the idea was sound, he 
couldn’t put it over because there wasn’t 
enough money. 
Mr. Coker and Bright Williamson, an- 
other far-seeing South Carolinian, also 
liked the vocational agriculture idea. 
They liked it so well, in fact, that they 
were willing to guarantee Mr. Long 
$2,500 for the first year’s work. J. M. 
Napier, then a county agent and now 
county agent at large in Darlington 
County, went to work on a program for 
five rural schools. It worked so well that 
Washington soon became interested in 
