The Southern and Midwestern Spread

Chapter Four continued…

Despite the fact that Charles “Slim” Lindbergh popularized flying m the Midwest, particularly around Lincoln, Nebraska, and in his home state of Minnesota in the 1920s, agricultural flying or crop dusting was a bit late arriving there.

This is somewhat peculiar, because the magnificent, far-flung fields of the great belt of superb farm land between Illinois and Montana were and are a crop duster’s dream. But the time for agricultural aviation had not arrived. Commercial chemical firms and government experimental agencies simply hadn’t come up with materials suitable for the control of most of the Midwestern insects or weeds that plagued farmers in that region. As a result, agricultural flying was generally confined to the South, Southwest, California.

This is not to say that agricultural flying was not done at all. Sporadic flights were made by barnstorming dusters at scattered locations and, as early as 1929, at least one attempt at aerial seeding was made in Nebraska.

Harold Wickersham, who still resides in Seward, Nebraska, and pilot friend Don Wright, also of Seward, made a successful attempt at sowing rape seed on a com field in July 1929. According to Wickersham, “July of 1929 was very hot and dry, typical of the summers of that era. I had been out of high school four years and remained home to help with the farming. We lived one mile north of Seward on what was then called the ‘Wake Section.’ My uncle and cousin farmed the north half and we farmed the south. Most of the work was done with horses and a few hired men.

“Among the many friends who I went to school with was Don Wright. Don was an exception.

He was destined for higher things, so he went to Chicago, bought a used Waco biplane, learned to fly it while there, and then flew it back to Nebraska. A plane was a rare sight in those days, especially one piloted by a local boy, so everyone in the community regularly visited our pasture where Don kept the plane tied down.

“At that time, there was a turnip- like plant called rape that was often planted by farmers as pasture for hogs. Rape had very small, very hard seed that could be broadcast on top of the ground. A little rain would germinate it and it would take root. Rape seed produced a plant with broad, green leaves something like cabbage, and made very good pasture.

“My dad had a field of com that he wanted to seed with rape, but the com was then about five feet high, so he didn’t know how to do it. Don and I conceived the idea of scattering it from the plane. I well remember that bushel sack of seed that I tried to hold between my knees and a pre-filled gallon bucket of seed that I planned to throw out.

“We took off and sailed down over the com field at about 30 feet off the ground, and I began trying to scatter the seed out from my gallon bucket. The first gallon was thrown out, but then I found that I couldn’t fill the bucket from the sack. As we circled around for another pass, I just threw the bucket over the side of the cockpit and laid the end of the open sack over the side and waited! Once over the field, I began dumping it. It scattered pretty well and, after a nice rain a few days later, it all came up. My dad and our hogs had a great pasture!”

The Seward Journal, the county newspaper, duly reported this incident in its July 18, 1929, issue.

At this time, in Timmonsville, South Carolina, pioneer airman M.B. “Dusty” Huggins was entering the flying game. Before his career was completed, Dusty would play a major role in spreading agricultural flying to all comers of the Midwest.

Dusty’s story reads like a fairy tale. Growing up in the little town of Timmonsville, in the heart of the fabled Pee Dee region, Dusty was first intrigued by railroads as a youngster and vowed he’d become an engineer. The local railroad crew more or less adopted the boy, gave him an engineer’s cap and coveralls, and allowed him to ride in the engine cab while the crew switched the cars or took on coal and water.

One day Dusty overstepped his authority, slipped aboard the engine while the engineer was out of the cab, reached over and released the brake handle. The big freight train lurched forward, frightening Dusty considerably. With remarkable reflexes, he grabbed the brake handle, yanked it back violently, and stopped the train so suddenly that the pursuing firemen rammed into the train and tumbled head -over-heels into the coal car! This incident brought an end to Dusty’s railroad career. As he grew older, he decided to take up something easier, like flying!

Paul Redfern, a prominent barnstorming pilot who disappeared over the Atlantic in 1927 while flying from Sea Island, Georgia, to Rio de Janeiro, flew to Timmonsville in the early 1920s. Young Dusty was hooked!

Redfern landed in a com field that had been freshly cleared and for several days hauled passengers and put on an air show. Young Dusty never rode with Paul. His chance came later, when Timmonsville was visited by another barnstormer, Eric Williams of Greenville. Then Dusty not only got his ride, but also managed to scrape up a few bucks and actually received some dual instruction from Williams.

Dusty had an older brother who was a West Point graduate and an Air Corps pilot. Somehow his brother managed to “requisition” an Army trainer almost every weekend and would tum up in the Pee Dee area to give his younger brother flying instructions. Dusty was an apt pupil and soon became a proficient pilot. After that, he took to the air and really never did come down to earth until his death a few years ago.

From the beginning, Dusty believed that flying could be profitable as well as pleasurable, provided an airplane was available. His first such purchase was a $400 surplus war bird, that he was never able to fly to Timmonsville! Later, he did manage to procure a new light plane by trading off his wife’s brand new Model T Ford in an even swap! Apparently things were not too pleasant around the Huggins home for quite some time. Dusty’s red - -headed wife did finally manage to get another car and Dusty never ran out of airplanes! To express just how things were handled in the Huggins family, Mrs. Huggins installed a wall plaque in the kitchen that read: “The opinions expressed by the husband are not necessarily those of the management!”

Dusty was lured into crop dusting by the legendary Delta Air Service and went to work for the firm in 1937 with absolutely no training. That summer, he completed his first dusting job over a huge Mississippi Delta cotton farm, in sight of the Mississippi River. The farmer, suspicious of Dusty’s qualifications, stood by during the entire operation, waving his arms as farmers are wont to do. But, according to Dusty, when the five-load job was done, the farmer congratulated him and commented on his skill.

After several seasons with Delta, Dusty wound up back in Timmonsville, where he operated the local airport and organized his own crop dusting firm. Like most of the early aerial applicators, he migrated with the seasons, particularly to the Midwest.

Dusty Huggins is credited with having introduced aircraft work in many spots throughout the Midwest, especially in the fertile Red River Valley of the Dakota country. He traveled regularly to that area before and during World War II, making applications on wheat and other crops with whatever chemicals were available at the time.

However, it was not until after the war that Dusty really came into his own in the Valley. The miracle chemical 2,4-D had made the scene and Dow Chemical Company, which was promoting the product, contracted with Dusty to do extensive experimental work with it on Red River Valley wheat. According to Dow technical man Larry Southwick, Dusty did all of the early 2,4-D experiments and the work was a howling success.

Dusty Huggins became a folk hero in the Midwest and fledgling pilots watched him with awe. Richard Reade of Mid-Continent Aircraft recalls Dusty fondly: “Dusty was my first crop dusting hero. I used to watch him work and I swore that one day I’d be sitting up there doing the same thing. Well, it finally happened, but I doubt that I ever quite managed to approach his skill. He was a natural and there just aren’t many of them around!”

Like most early ag pilots, Dusty had his share of accidents and destroyed a few planes. Fortunately, he was never seriously injured in an accident, even though he plowed into power lines, struck flocks of ducks in flight, and even collided with a huge bald eagle. The only time he was ever injured in his business, he slipped and fell from the center section while fueling a biplane. This little mishap broke several ribs and laid him up for a day or two.

Dusty was a yam spinner and told once of an incident that occurred while working in the Midwest. “It was during the war,” he said, “and shoes were rationed. I had bought myself a brand new pair in South Carolina, but my feet got hot while flying. So I took them off in the open cockpit and when I did, I noticed something like a tag in one of them. Without thinking, I held the shoe up in the slipstream and of course the wind snatched it away and blew it half way across North Dakota. So there I was, a thousand miles from home with just one shoe and no ration book! Luckily a kindly shoe clerk in a little town out there believed my story and let me have a new pair.”

Dusty spent his lifetime flying, not all of it in agricultural aviation. He was also a pilot and lieutenant for the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division. In this capacity, he looked for illicit moonshine stills, chased runaway felons, and searched for missing or lost in the dense South Carolina woodlands and marshes. At least nine such lost individuals, who might have died had it not been for Dusty, are eternally grateful to him and his little Aeronca Champ for appearing at the right place at the right time. Surely he was one of nature’s noblemen and a credit to the agricultural flying industry, which he did so much to foster and perpetuate.