SWakeChat
As reporters we see and hear a lot of information that doesn't necessarily make it into news stories. This is our opportunity to share those tidbits with southwest Wake readers. If you would like to respond to a blog item, post your comments in this blog or e-mail us at carynews@nando.com. Comments here may be reprinted in The Cary News or The News & Observer.
Oh, it's just a little boll weevil
In reporting on a story about gardeners in western Wake County that runs tomorrow, I came across a funny story that didn't make it to print.
On suggestion from a reporter, I had walked a block from our office to a thriving garden on a corner lot, where Betty Ross just happened to be weeding. I told her I was looking for gardeners to interview and we got into a conversation about her own garden and how she always had one while raising her family in Cary.
Betty told me that one time - this was back in the 1970s - someone had given her then-young son some cotton to plant in the garden. Tended, it grew. But somebody who knew a bit about cotton noticed and Betty soon had the N.C. Department of Agriculture knocking on her door. Apparently, you can't just decide one day you'd like to grow cotton. The reason: boll weevils.
The pesky little beetles, which migrated from Mexico, had infestated our nation's cotton crop in the early 20th century.
In Betty's case, it was determined that she could keep her little cotton plant, but it was inspected regularly for boll weevils.
Betty told me that the plant was such a curiosity in the neighborhood that neighbors came by to look, and her son took some of the cotton to school to show his classmates.
Incidentally, a federal Boll Weevil Eradication program that was started in 1978 has been quite successful.
