Although I was born in the suburbia of our nation’s capital, my parents shouldn’t have been surprised I ended up in agriculture. My dad grew up on a subsistence farm in Pennsylvania, and mom’s grandfather owned the only gin in Leslie, South Carolina. After my parents got engaged, the U.S. Department of Agriculture transferred my father, who worked for the ... Read More »
Motor Cooking & Other Reflections I began scouting cotton in 1978 after my dear grandmother saw an ad in the local newspaper soliciting cotton scouts to work for the Phillips County, Ark., Cooperative Extension Service. After working there for three summers, I began managing the insecticide screening plots at the Cotton Branch Experiment Station in Marianna. Upon graduating from the ... Read More »
Ray began checking cotton in 1949 as a college student. After we married in 1952 and he served in the Navy for two more years, Ray set up a consulting business and started knocking on doors. Franklin Parish was the largest “cotton patch” in Louisiana so that’s where we went. We moved to Wisner because his first customer lived there. ... Read More »
After many years of being asked by One Grower staff for a My Turn article, I relented and will try to give you readers some things to ponder. I spent my career as a research entomologist with the University of Tennessee, Ciba-Geigy and FMC. These ventures put me in contact worldwide with some very important and impressionable people. However, before ... Read More »
When it comes to working in the cotton industry — and cotton ginning in particular — you either immerse yourself in it, or you just get a little wet and move on. I would be one of those “immersion” types. This industry gets in your blood. It becomes not only a job, but also a vocation. But where does that ... Read More »
In the Central Valley of California the name Gallian is synonymous with cotton and the cotton industry. It all started with Quentin “Tennessee” Gallian building one of the first gins in 1950, known as Visalia Co-Op Cotton Gin. Pa, as we called him, boasted about an industry that surrounded him with family and friendship. Little did he know that two ... Read More »
Although I was not raised on a farm nor from a farming family, I always loved animals, especially cows and horses. I considered myself a cowboy and planned to major in pre-veterinary medicine when I started college at the University of Louisiana at Monroe (at the time, Northeast Louisiana University) in August 1996. My academic advisor encouraged me to pursue ... Read More »
Cotton Farming One Grower Publications
