Essays

Moseying: Living La Vida Llanero

Cotton farming on the Llano Estacado
November 4, 2004

“Grandpa, what’s the white stuff on those plants?” I have been driving to Lubbock with some regularity these last few months as I have met with other interpreters of the Llano Estacado. In late August, my grandson and I drove down “turnrows” looking for a a geocache on the way back from the South Plains Wildlife Rehabilitation Center. The “road” was extremely rough – for it was four feet lower than the surrounding cottonfields and was built on outcroppings of the caliche subsurface. In other places, sandy silt carried by thunderstorms had filled the turnrow with deep sand that threatened to stop the SUV – I even had to put the car in four-wheel drive. The recent rains have hurt the cotton crop in our region, lowering its quality.

Cotton farming on the Llano Estacado does not have many “interpreters.” About the only time cotton farmers get any media coverage is when they are suffering from drought. Nathaniel Petrov, a cultural anthropology senior at Texas Tech, volunteered at the Sibley Center this summer, so I assigned him to a research project on cotton. He gathered information for future displays and programs. One of the books that he found is “Plains Farmer, the diary of William G. DeLoach, 1914-1964” edited and annotated by Janet M. Neugebauer, the long time assistant archivist on the staff at The Southwest Collections at Texas Tech. DeLoach farmed in the middle of the Llano Estacado, northwest of Lubbock. The book is full of anecdotal information that illustrates the changes of the industry from its infancy until it had become a dominant factor of life on the Llano Estacado.

DeLoach’s father had been a Georgia cotton plantation owner who had been ruined by the Civil War and settled in Texas is 1887, but finally ended up in Oklahoma. DeLoach’s first jobs were cowboying, first in Crosby County in 1898 and later around Midland. In 1901 he moved to Greer County Oklahoma to help his father and farmed “on halves,” splitting the profit with the landowner. In 1913 a daughter burned to death, so he moved back to Crosby County to be far from the bad memories. Two sisters were already there, and a brother-in-law rented him a farm to grow grain sorghum.

Cotton was beginning to get established. In 1902 only 4 bales of cotton were produced in Lubbock County, and two years later 110 bales. The cotton had to be hauled to Colorado City to be ginned, so the citizens of Lubbock formed a cooperative and built a gin, hauling the heavy machinery by wagon. Seven hundred bales were produced the next year, and the growth became exponential, especially after railroad service was established in Lubbock in 1909. By 1927 Lubbock was the second largest inland cotton market, with seven gins, a cotton oil mill, and 150 cotton buyers representing every major mill in the world. By 1947 the Llano Estacado became the most prolific cotton-producing region in the world.

DeLoach broke sod in Crosby County, turning the prairie grass over. Breaking two acres was a good day’s work, following a team of mules. In 1914 he planted 45 acres of cotton, as well as sorghum for his livestock (including milk cows and hogs.) He considered the cotton a gamble, despite the growing acreage of cotton in the area. During that decade naysayers were still predicting that cotton belonged in more humid regions, and that the industry would soon “go bust.” His 45 acres were about as much as could be farmed by one man, since harvesting had to be done by hand. He later moved northwest of Lubbock, where he farmed until his death.

The “lint” was pulled out of the boll and put in a towsack dragged along behind the picker. A good “puller” could load up 400 pounds of lint in a day. Cotton was picked for months, starting as soon the bolls opened in mid to late September and lasting until a hard freeze cracked the last young bolls and the lint dried (sometimes as late as December.) Pulling the cotton meant getting a better grade at the gin. To pick cotton means to take the boll and all, which in the early days resulted in getting a lower price at the gin.

Neugebauer’s annotations are necessary for interpreting DeLoach’s diary. The annotations lead a person to gain an historical broad-based perspective of cotton farming and life on the Llano Estacado. It is OUR history, and should be part of our “common knowledge.” When a person drives down a Llano Estacado highway and sees an abandoned homestead with dead Siberian elms encircling a weathered and windowless gray clapboard house, a reader familiar with DeLoach’s story “sees” so much more than someone who has no inkling of an idea of what might have transpired at what seems to be such a sad but picturesque landscape.

As an amateur naturalist, I do not often stop in a cotton field. Most farmers eliminate everything from their fields except their cotton. Birds, lizards, snakes, wildflowers, prairie grasses and such are not found in cotton fields. Cotton and okra plants, being kin, are a lot alike – the blooms, the large leaves, the size of the plant (before okra sends up its stalk), and the rough stems that can make a sensitive person itch. I have crossed cotton fields in the winter while hiking on many Audubon Christmas Bird Counts – and it seems that every time I do, I get snagged by Devil’s Claw.

Devil’s Claw or Ram’s Horn, as it is called by those that would rather not use the word Devil, has a green seed pod that looks very much like okra. The blooms don’t (they are pretty and shaped like a snapdragon,) but the large heart-shaped leaves smell like cat urine and are sticky and hairy. The seed pod, when it dries, splits open and curls in on itself – shaping itself to be like that of a bighorn sheep skull and horns. Among the folks that love to do folk crafts, the Devil’s Claw pod is often used on the Llano Estacado. If a person owns a southwestern Indian basket, the black in the basket is Devil’s Claw. For the rest of us, the skinny tips of the “horns” are spaced perfectly to grab the leg of a passerby, be it a human, a bovine, an ovine, or an equine. It can be a startling experience – and has made people initially believe a rattlesnake has just sunk its fangs into their ankle.

As usual, I get some goofy ideas. Since cotton farmers go about their business almost unnoticed, I believe that maybe the rest of us should honor their contribution to our regional economy by planting a few cotton seeds in our gardens each year. Cotton lint does not have to be white. There are a number of organic growers on the Llano Estacado that have cotton of several colors, so you do have a choice of types of cotton to grow. To further the experience of personal connection to our bioregional life, pick your very own cotton, while listening to Butch Hancock and Andy Wilkinson sing about Llano Estacado farm and ranch life. And if you want to get even more involved, urge your neighborhood elementary school to have a little plot of cotton, too. It is yet another way to teach our kids about their own home landscape and economy.