Boll Weevil Destroyed 75% of J.W. Carter's Cotton Crop, 1919

“Carter and the Boll Weevil,” from the front page of the Rockingham Post-Dispatch, Sept. 4, 1919

J.W. Carter, A Richmond county man living in Beaufort county, South Carolina, for the past two years, spent the first week here. He came to sell his house and lot in West Rockingham to J.C. Dockery.

Mr. Carter’s post office is Gray’s Hill, which is 60 miles from Savannah and 250 miles from Rockingham. He brought the Post-Dispatch a number of dead boll weevils in a bottle and stated that the terrible pest has this year damaged the cotton crop of his county fully 75 per cent. Two years ago there was no sign of the weevil in Beaufort county. Last year the insect appeared and did much damage, and this year it ravaged the crop fearfully. He gives the doleful prediction that it will reach Richmond county within the next two years, in its steady march through the belt.