My Turn Being Thankful: Let Me Count The Ways
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hy am I thank- assortment of high-quality crops. ful my husband Our consultant and his crews checked cotton from was an inde- north to central Louisiana, which means he grew to pendent crop love and respect countless excellent keepers of God’s consultant? Let me count the soil. During these years of consulting, we were blessed ways: to know hundreds of young people who needed sumWho would have believed mer employment. How else could we have met these back in 1948 that a man in outstanding young people? Caddo Parish, Louisiana, Many of the students received college credit from named Dan Logan would Louisiana universities for the summer work. It would decide a farmer needs to be difficult to count the ones we were fortunate to Dorothy know what is in his field know who have been very successful in their chosen Young before he puts a product out careers. Many are now great consultants. Others are in to kill it? Who would believe a variety of professions, even heart transplant doctors, two agriculture students from Louisiana Tech would etc.! be hired to walk these fields and find out what was I am thankful this consulting husband helped with present? the eradication of the boll weevil. He helped open And guess what? One of those lucky ag students has the door for broadening consulting to not only bug been my husband for 69 years! checking but variety selection, when to plant, how to He joined the Naval Aviation Program after gradu- prepare land for irrigation, when to irrigate, crop feration and flew anti-submarine planes from an aircraft tilization and all factors concerning crop production. carrier for four years. After discharge, this lucky stuI also am thankful our children have been a big dent moved to Franklin part of this journey. The Parish, Louisiana. At that “Thanks be to God for the journey sons started checking cottime, Franklin Parish was ton and crops at an early as a crop consultant’s wife.” the biggest cotton field age and all through high in the state. That Navy school and college. We aviator started knocking on doors of local farmers live in a very small town. No laundry mats or eating offering to find out what was in their fields and what joints available. The girls helped cook for the students it would take to correct the problems. He was amazed we housed, hoe our cotton fields and do laundry for the that farmers would hire him but thankful for the boys. This was a great influence on their work ethic. opportunity to have a job and be helping farmers at Here’s another reason to be thankful: We have met the same time. wonderful people from all over the country who have The following fall this new scout enrolled at shared their love for helping farmers produce betLouisiana State University and majored in entomolo- ter crops. We have enjoyed travel in the winter or gy and studied under top notch professors to find out off-growing season. Thanks be to God for the journey all about bugs and what they do to crops. His masters’ as a crop consultant’s wife. thesis was to prove the resistance of boll weevils to Guess I better tell you my bestest crop consultant chlorinated hydrocarbons. He collected weevils from that I have been talking about is Ray Young from fields all over the state. He treated about 11,000 wee- Wisner, Louisiana. Come see us. We’d love to feed you vils and kept records of what killed what. He was for- country cooking and talk about crop consulting and tunate to get help from fellow students, and their work raising crops on this wonderful land God has entrustproved weevil resistance to certain insecticides. ed to us. So blessed are we that this started a new field of work that has helped thousands of farmers. So thank— Dorothy Young ful that many young men and women have entered Wisner, Louisiana the field of consulting and helped farmers raise a huge dorothyrayyoung@centurylink.net
Cotton Farming’s back page is devoted to telling unusual “farm tales” or timely stories from across the Cotton Belt. Now it’s your turn. If you’ve got an interesting story to tell, send a short summary to csmith@onegrower.com. We look forward to hearing from you.
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COTTON FARMING | APRIL 2022
COTTONFARMING.COM
