In the early 1900s, my great grandparents came to Lake Village, Arkansas, from Italy.
Today, my family on both my mom and dad’s side are predominantly cotton farmers. There have been good years and tough years production wise, but they’ve...
One of my most prized photos shows my father squatting in the middle of a cotton field with 5-inch-high plants on both sides of him. Some rows have grass under the cotton; several rows do not.
It was his first...
My personal cotton story began on the manmade beaches of Ocean Springs, Mississippi. Four years ago, I knew little about cotton history or its production. That’s when I dove in with zeal to learn all that my mind and...
In 2022, it will have been 100 years since my great grandpaw, Gotleib Voigt, moved up here from Central Texas and bought some land on the South Plains. I am the fourth generation to farm the home place.
Our family...
It wasn’t like I hadn’t seen cotton all my life growing up in the Desert Southwest. I just didn’t expect it to become my life.
I signed up for Ag Econ 313, Economics of Futures Markets, while planning my senior...
Each fall, usually about mid-September (depending on the weather during the growing season), the cotton bolls would burst open and cotton picking would begin. White fluff began to gather on both sides of the road on our farm, particularly...
The beginning of 2020 brought an end to a century of farm ownership when we sold the family farm in Eric, Oklahoma. All of the grandchildren — including me — are mostly removed from the area, and the...
I am a sixth-generation farmer in Bulloch County, Georgia. I operate Cromley Farms in partnership with my brother, Charley, where we grow cotton and peanuts. When pickers roll this fall, it will be the 40th crop I have taken...
My father, David Fisher, was born in 1920 in Wichita County, Texas, and moved to Willacy County after serving in the U.S. Navy from 1940-1946.
He was chief quarter-master on the Mahan-class USS Preston destroyer. A Japanese cruiser sent her...
In 1934, the Bakersfield Exchange Club sponsored a cotton picking contest with prizes. The event was held in Buttonwillow and had 30 contestants. On Oct.12, 1935, the Kern County Farm Bureau directors decided to sponsor a similar event.
The committee...
When my mother was a young girl growing up in Leland, Mississippi, she and her sister, Babe, and their first cousin (same age), Patsy Jeanne, would get to spend a lot of time together in the summers.
Momma especially liked...
My association with cotton began when I was born wearing 100% cotton cloth diapers and duck head safety pins. Cotton production has been one of my passions in life. In my early years, my father was an Extension agent...
Sporting a faded, floppy-brimmed fedora, Aunt Blanche would lay on the horn of her bob truck even though my older brother, Mike, and I were waiting for her on our front porch. We grabbed our new 9-foot-long Bemis Blue...
After 32 years of crop consulting, you would think this business would run like a well-oiled machine. To the contrary, running a company with predominantly 18- to 25-year-old employees is much like running a house full of teenagers. Always...
Members of the Verett family have farmed in Crosby County, Texas, since my granddad settled here in 1917. I grew up in Ralls, and my dad was a farmer but retired relatively early. At that point, my older brother,...
