Shiner Gazette (Shiner, Tex.), Vol. 34, No. 40, Ed. 1 Thursday, August 11, 1927 Page: 3 of 16
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CURRENT COMMENT *•*»■«*
August Reflections.
«r*jUGUST is not a popular month. It
L$jL got a bad start. Ambition and
graft appear to have had a big
hand in its origin. There was a
perfectly good month on the calendar
named Sextillis. Augustus Caesar laid
his iconoclastic hand upon it and the
world has known it no more. If Augus-
tus had been moved by high and holy
purposes in ruthlessly destroying the
month of Sextillis, things might have
been different; but he wasn't?. He was
moved by anger, jealousy and wounded
pride. He was mad because Mark An-
tony, one of his appointees, wasn’t look-
ing after business as a loyal appointee
should have been doing, but was down in
Egypt dancing and being wined and
dined, and basking in the smiles of the
beautiful Cleopatra, while Augustus was
groaning under the awful heat and per-
spiring as he tried to keep the affairs of
Rome going. He wanted to do some-
thing awful to Mark, but he knew bet-
ter. He knew very well what happened
to Brutus and Cassius when they raised
Mark’s ire. Marcus Antonius was some
orator. His voice was as powerful as
the thunder’s sullen roar, but as sweet,
when he wanted it to be, as the music
of falling waters. One speech by Mark
was sufficient to make “Rome howl,”
and when Rome howled monarch s trem-
bled in their boots and either lost their
heads or made for tall timber.
* * *
And Augustus was jealous of his un-
cle, the great Julius. Julius had been
dead some time, but the green-eyed
monster reaches beyond the grave.
Every time there was a picnic, a box
supper, a graduating exercise, a Wood-
men unveiling, or a Chamber of Com-
merce spread a free lunch in Rome, or a
political campaign was put on to reduce
taxes, some silver-tongued orator arose
and reminded the Romans of what Jul-
ius did to the Barbarians, and told of the
magnificence and splendor of his tri-
umphal entry into the city when he re-
turned from conquest. Augustus wished
that he had never had an Uncle Julius,
and while he dared not say so, he was
very glad that Brutus and Cassius
struck Julius Caesar down on the fate-
ful ides of March. He tried to forget
the name of his uncle, but he couldn’t,
for the name was on the tongue of
every orator in Rome, and also on the
calendar. When July, the month that
was named in honor of Julius, came
around, Augustus stayed in his room,
drank corn liquor and made life miser-
able for his wife, especially if any of her
kinfolks dropped in to spend a week.
Finally Augustus determined that he
would even matters up with his uncle by
making a place on the calendar for him-
self. He looked up the records and
found that Julius had killed Quintilis
and set up July in its stead, and so by
a stroke of his pen he knocked out Sex-
tillis and set up August in its stead.
Many people do not understand why
two thirty-one-day months come to-
gether. It was because Augustus de-
manded that his month have as many
days as the month of Julius; and I have
heard that he robbed some of the other
months in order' to get a full comple-
ment of days for his own.
I cannot even attempt to tell here of
all the horrors of August; it is an awful
month on men, dogs and pocketbooks. It
is the time when gardens fail and flow-
ers succumb; when boys who have
planned a fishing trip are forced to stay
at home, clean off a new-ground spot
and plant turnips. It is the time of dog
days, when Fido is shot on suspicion
when he is only howling for something
to eat, and Frisk isn’t permitted to
play with the children. It is the time
when rich people go to the seashore
and persist in sending their poor
friends highly-colored postcards which
show about 97 per cent of a bathing
beauty, and under the undraped form
write, “We are wearing our wraps every
day and sleeping under blankets every
night.” Right now, when all of us are
broke, begrimed with perspiration and
maddened by the messages which come
to us from the mountain retreats and
the seashore, we recall as one of the
evils brought to the world by August
that Christopher Columbus set sail on
the third day of the fateful month to
discover America. If he had let the In-
dians alone, we contend at this particu-
lar time, white people would never have
learned to chew tobacco. But—“front-
ing the night the light,” which is to say
that the best follows closely upon the
heels of the worst. After August comes
“September Morn,” and the earth will
be robed in autumnal glories. Old
Ulysses withstood, the torture of Hades
by thinking of the beauty and loveli-
ness of his wife. So keep your mind on
September.
* * * *
Every country in Europe is infested
with anarchists, and the “reds” are be-
coming sufficiently numerous in the
United States to be troublesome.
Wouldn’t it be fine if all the anarchists
in all the world were sent to one/island,
and while they were on the journey
somebody should slip one of the anarch-
ists about ten pounds of dynamite ? He’d
soon fall out with the island government
and blow the whole thing up.
* * *
It appears that there is no such thing
as good without a trace of evil accom-
panying it. All of us rejoiced a few
weeks ago when a learned scientist gave
out the information that people could
get rid of the troublesome mosquitoes
by keeping a bat about the premises.
While I was negotiating for a bat a good
old woman, who knows whereof she
speaks, informed me that bats are car-
riers and scatterers of bed bugs. The
question now is, shall we bear the ills
we have or fly to those that make less
noise and smell worse. Carrying the ar-
gument a little further: on the same
day the first load of home-grown water-
melons came in I heard of a case of
dengue fever only a few blocks away.
* *
It isn’t what physical exercise is, but
what we call it, that counts and influ-
ences- feelings and systems. Splitting
stovewood is not a more strenuous exer-
cise than wielding a croquet mallet, but
oh, what a different influence it exerts
upon a man’s feelings. I had a neigh-
bor a few years ago who always threw
a fit when his wife insisted that he split
an armful of stovewood, but he would
wield a croquet mallet until darkness
drove him from the yard. Chopping
cotton requires no greater exercise of
physical strength, neither is it more
wearying to the body than playing golf,
and yet there are many who will play
golf in the heat of the day who can’t
stand an hour’s chopping in field or gar-
den in the cool of the morning. What is
the difference? It’s all in the name. We
call one work and the other play. I no-
ticed a golfer and his caddy come in a
short time ago. They had made the
same rounds, but one was fresh while
the other was exhausted. The exercise
was the same, but one had called his
walking and hammering play and the
other had called his walking and picking
up balls work. Don’t say there is noth-
ing in a name. If cotton chopping had
been instituted as a game, with scoring
points, instead of necessary labor, there
wouldn’t be a sprig of grass to a ten-
acre cotton patch.
* * *
Having regulated most other concerns
and people. Congress should now turn its
attention to automobile manufacturers.
The way the automobile makers adver-
tise the price of their cars is an outrage
and has worked ruin to many a hard-
working man. The auto concerns ad-
vertise their sedans at $795, or $967, or
$972, using very large figures. The big
figures catch the eyes of the women
folks, and they exultingly show them to
the old man, telling at what a low price
he can get a fine car. Poor man is led
to believe that he can get a car at the
advertised price—a car delivered at his
door, ready to run. But under these
prices, in type almost too small to be
read with the natural eye, are the words,
“f. o. b. Chicago, Detroit or Flint, Mich-
igan,” meaning that the freight must be
paid. And there’s a big difference in
the car at the factory and a car ready
to drive. There must be shock absorb-
ers, bumpers, spare tires, larger steer-*
ing wheels, curtains, etc., and all of
these cost money. In the interest of
poor man automobile concerns should be
forced to advertise prices for a car com-
plete and ready to start from a fellow’s
front door. If this were done many men
would remain honest, plodding footpad-
ders who are deceived into the ranks of
the cushionites.
* * *
Man and the Bugs and Worms.
Once more the fight between man and
the bugs and worms is on; in truth, this
fight stays on. These natural enemies
never close the doors of Janus temple
or declare a moratorium. Man is prone
to strut his stuff as a warrior. He in-
vades the jungles and kills the elephant
and the tiger, he drove the mighty dino-
sarius from the earth, he goes into the
deep and drags out the alligators and
the hippopotami, but in the fight with
the lowly bugs and worms man has nev-
er left the field with a single victory
written upon his brow.
Life itself is a fight against and a
flight from bugs and worms. It begins
at the cradle, but it does not end even
at the grave. While the human tribe
are yet in the cradle with the dews of
innocence upon their brows, the flies
and mosquitoes come to murder sleep,
and parasites attack the internal econ-
omy, calling for huge draughts of nau-
seous vermifuge. But the bugs and
worms are not content to inflict pain
and scatter disease. They stalk through
the fields and turn crops of great prom-
ise into worthless weeds. Man never
whips these natural enemies and never
gets away from them. A company of
hornets can stampede the greatest army
man ever organized, and a dozen bed
bugs can drive him from the finest man-
sion in the land. The chinch bugs and
the green bugs can starve the human
family and the boll weevils can reduce
him to nakedness.
The enmity of the bug and worm
families toward mankind is not only
deep-seated, but in the application of
the enmity the bugs and worms are in-
genious and acquainted with strategy.
They never destroy anything man
doesn’t need. All over the land arc
fields of Johnson grass, cockle burrs,
etc., but no bug or worm ever molests
these. The cut worm plows through the
garden and slays the beans and pean
but never molests the hors§ weed or
parsley. When apples were worthless,
no insect bothered them and the yield
was so great that they rotted in the or-
chards. When apples became valuable,
the worms came to destroy the fruit and
the scale to kill the trees. Before peo-
ple cared for tomatoes, no inject preyed
upon them, but now the tomato grow-
er must watch his vines as the govern-
ment watches its currency if,, he gath-
ers any fruit. I am confident that if
man could make Johnson grass, Russian
thistles and other pests profitable crops,
the insects would soon inaugurate a
campaign of destruction that would
drive these pests from the earth.
As this is written, bugs and worms
form the great theme of conversation in
the section in which I live, and people
are trembling with fear before the in-
significant insects. There is a fine crop
of corn maturing, but it remains to be
seen whether the chinch bugs and the
weevils will permit any of it to be gath-
ered into the barns. The great cotton
fields are veritable flower gardens,
pointing their white and crimson bugles
at the sun, while the limbs are weighted
down with the earlier growth of bolls.
It would seem that we have old hard
times on the run, and that soon the
lights of prosperity will be glittering on
the hillsides' and in the valleys. But
what will the worms and weevils do?
We well know that they can destroy all
in a week and leave the fields but worth-
less weeds.
* * *
Human life is a battle against bugs
and worms, from the cooing babe to
hoary age; even when weary of the
fight and man goes to the bourne from
whence no traveler returns, the worms
encamp about his remains and eat his
flesh and bones. And so proud man,
the crowning work of the Creator, is
conquered and consumed at last by a
horde of insignificant bugs and worms.
PARKER COUNTY WATERMELONS
By R. K. PHILLIPS.
T was twenty years from the time
Parker county, Texas, got in the
limelight as a watermelon grow-
ing section until it reached the
ligh water mark as a shipping point for
Lis product, and during these years
nelon growing developed there on a
commercial scale as it has in few other
tl
localities.
In 1904 Bob Harrington, who still
lives in Parker county, grew 'ten
Triumph melons, weighing around 100
pounds each, and these were sent to the
World’s Fair in St. Louis. They won
first prize both on size and quality, and
Harrington brought home the gold
medal, the blue ribbon and other tro-
phies that go to the prize-winner in
world-wide competition. At that time
there had never been a carload of mel-
ons shipped from Weatherford, Texas;
they had been grown there exclusively
for the local market and few shipped out
by express.
The following year, in 1905, Wiley
Messer loaded the first car of melons
from Weatherford—Tom Erwin, a local
merchant, shipping them to a dealer in
Fort Worth. These melons were the
first of the famous Tom Watsons to be
grown in Parker county, the melon that
a short time later became the standard
and has been shipped in carlots over a
large part of the United States.
In 1924 Weatherford, including Lam-
bert, Millsap and Garner, small towns
near by, shipped out more than 1,500
carloads of melons. One day in August
of that year there were 82 cars of mel-
ons loaded at Weatherford, and the rea-
son more were not loaded was because
the available supply of cars and track-
age gave out. The growers were still
going strong when night came and
wagons and trucks continued to come in
loaded with juicy Tom Watsons.
This Year’s Crop About 700 Cars.
During the past two years the sea-
sons have not been favorable and the
acreage has been reduced in Parker
County. But at the time this is writ-
ten, early in July, melons are looking
fine, with every indication of a large
yield and high quality. Rains came just
right during the spring and early sum-
mer to keep the vines growing and en-
able them to put on and hold the melons.
There should be at least 700 cars ship-
ped from this county this year.
G&rt&in soil and climatic conditions
around Weatherford have combined
to produce luscious and attractive
melons that ship well and satisfy
the consumer. For years the Par-
ker county Tom Watsons were the
standard of what a melon should be and
they became famed throughout the
country. The Watsons ran, as a rule,
from 35 to as high as 70 pounds each,
and were a long, symmetrical melon.
The Triumph, which is a round melon
and which grows to a larger size, con-
tinued to be grown on a small scale
and most of these were shipped out by
express, largely for exhibition and ad-
vertising purposes.
One of the first things early mel-
on growers learned was that water-
melons, to produce their best, must be
carefully cultivated. They are usually
planted from
the middle of
April to the
the first of
May and the
land is care-
fully prepar-
ed. Of late
years either
barnyard fer-
tilizer or cot-
ton seed meal
and phos-
phate have
been used, or
a special
brand of com-
mercial fertil-
i z e r. The
vines are cul-
tivated as of-
ten as needed
in order to
keep the rows free from weeds
or grass and to have a good mulch
on top to conserve moisture. The rows
are ten to twelve feet apart and after
the vines grow out for some distance,
they are turned once every week, or ten
days, in order that the ground may be
plowed. The vines are trained back so
as to allow some distance between them
in the middle and cultivation is kept
up until the melons are almost grown.
Industry Developed by Local Farmers.
The melon industry in Parker county is
confined almost entirely to farmers who
were reared there, who learned how to
grow melons from their neighbors. No
effort has been made to boom the busi-
ness locally or to sell land pn the
strength of what might be made from
growing melons.
In addition to growers already men-
tioned, there were a number of others
who were pioneers and who helped to
put the melon business' on its feet. Dan
Bull was one of these and he still grows
a few acres of good melons each year.
Henry Means, who is now horticultural
agent for the Rock Island railroad, was
farming near Weatherford twenty years
ago and developed a variety of water-
melons of his own. A. Andrews is a
grower of long standing who has been
very successful.
One of the big items in growing mel-
ons is getting them to market. When
they had to be hauled exclusively in
wagons, seven or eight miles from a
shipping station, that was as far
as they could be profitably hauled. Now
with trucks, melons are marketed over a
distance of twenty miles.
Until seven or eight years ago buy-
ers would come to Weatherford from
the larger cities, but local firms became
strong enough to buy, not only the local
melon crop, but a large part of the crop
from South and East Texas as well.
Prices for melons are always quoted
by the ton on the local market, and from
$15 to $20 per ton is considered a sat-
isfactory price, although they have been
much higher as well as much lower.
Annual Sales $150,000 to $350,000.
On account of wide variations in
prices and yields, it is rather difficult to
make an estimate as to the total value
of the melon crop. During the past five
years there has been planted from 3,000
to 6,000 acres per year and the in-
come from sales $150,000 to $350,000
per year. In addition to the carlot ship-
ments, many melons are trucked out to
Fort Worth, Dallas and towns and cities
in the black lands east of Weatherford,
as well as into the oil fields of West
Texas. Only an approximate estimate
can be made of the number and value of
the melons handled by trucks to near-
by cities.
Five to ten acres is an average crop
of melons in Parker county, although the
man who has in twenty acres or more is
ranked as a big grower. A general av-
erage for the past twenty years would
probably put the gross price paid per
acre at close to $100, some growers re-
porting $50
as the lowest
and $200 an
acre as the
highest they
had received
for the sea-
son’s crop.
Most of the
growers have
used melons
as a side line
in crop rota-
tion and they
have been es-
p e c i a 1 1 y
profitable in
this way. The
bulk of the
crop is mar-
keted in Au-
gust when
other farm
work is slack and many farmers
pay their expenses up to that time
from the sales of melons. Five to
ten acres may be cultivated and sold
without interfering to any great extent
with other farming operations, but the
man with a larger acreage has to de-
pend largely on hired labor to move his
crop.
Loading melons in Weatherford on a
busy day in August is a show to pass-
ing tourists and strangers. Wagons and
trucks pour into the public square from
every direction, are weighed on the pub-
lic scales, and from the scales are driven
to either the Santa Fe or Texas and Pa-
cific tracks, and there loaded into box
cars by crews of men and boys. When
a vehicle is unloaded it is driven back
. -I
MARKETING PARKER COUNTY WATERMELONS
(Part of a long line of wagons, loaded with watermelons, on one of the main streets of Weatherford, Texas, waiting to be unloaded
into box cars for shipment to Eastern markets.)
to the scales, weighed, and the driver
given a ticket- showingthe weight,
which goes back to the buyer who issues
a check to the grower in payment.
Growers who haul regularly usually
keep their tickets and cash them once a
day.
All Lines of Business Benefited.
Money from watermelons is widely
distributed; much of the expense is for
hauling and loading. Therefore, a good
melon crop and fair prices mean good
times for the growers and good wages
for all employes handling the crop. The
money paid out is quickly put into cir-
culation and all lines of business feels its
stimulating effects.
One other feature that should be
touched on in this article is the selling
of seed. ^
As the fame of Parker county melons
went abroad, other communities decid-
ed they would like to get into the busi-
ness. Dealers as well as individual
growers then began handling melon
seed on a large scale and this has been
one of the contributing causes for the
starting of watermelon growing in
South and East Texas, Oklahoma and
Arkansas. Thousands of dollars’ worth
of seed are saved and sold annually
by growers and dealers of Parker
county.
Ten years ago Hempstead and Weath-
erford, Texas, and Rush Springs, Okla-
homa, were the only towns in these two
States which were shipping melons on
a large scale. Now there are scores of
towns in the Southwest making carlot
shipments. As a result, there was over-
production last year and prices in some
instances below the cost of produc-
tion.
It would seem that the gold mine
days of the watermelon business is a
thing of the past. Production will have
to be along more conservative lines un-
til a wider market is established.
One of the hazards in connection with
the melon business is the weather, not
so much where the melons are rais-
ed as where the melons are sold.
Most of the Parker County melons
go to Kansas City and Chicago and
are distributed throughout the Middle
West. Rain and cold weather in the
cities where melons are offered for sale
affects Consumption, which automat-
ically reduces sales, and buyers are
therefore forced to quit loading at many
shipping points.
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Habermacher, Mrs. J. C. & Lane, Ella E. Shiner Gazette (Shiner, Tex.), Vol. 34, No. 40, Ed. 1 Thursday, August 11, 1927, newspaper, August 11, 1927; Shiner, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1144360/m1/3/?q=music: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Shiner Public Library.