{"id":9524,"date":"2023-04-27T20:48:11","date_gmt":"2023-04-27T20:48:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/library\/?page_id=9524"},"modified":"2023-04-27T20:48:11","modified_gmt":"2023-04-27T20:48:11","slug":"b-f-smith-oral-history","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/library\/b-f-smith-oral-history\/","title":{"rendered":"B.F. Smith Oral History"},"content":{"rendered":"[vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” column_margin=”default” column_direction=”default” column_direction_tablet=”default” column_direction_phone=”default” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” row_border_radius=”none” row_border_radius_applies=”bg” overlay_strength=”0.3″ gradient_direction=”left_to_right” shape_divider_position=”bottom” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” column_element_spacing=”default” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1\/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” bg_image_animation=”none” border_type=”simple” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][divider line_type=”No Line”][vc_column_text]\n

B.F. Smith Oral History<\/span><\/h1>\n[\/vc_column_text][divider line_type=”No Line”][page_submenu alignment=”center” sticky=”true” bg_color=”#008542″ link_color=”#ffffff”][page_link link_url=”https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/library\/manuscripts-and-guides\/” title=”Manuscripts & Subject Guides<\/strong>” id=”1682628223596-8″ tab_id=”1682628223597-8″] [\/page_link][page_link link_url=”https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/library\/guides-to-the-collection-page\/” title=”Collections Portal<\/strong>” id=”1682628223605-9″ tab_id=”1682628223606-2″] [\/page_link][page_link title=”Visit<\/strong>” id=”1682628288596-2″ tab_id=”1682628288597-8″ link_url=”https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/library\/departments\/archives-museum\/visit\/”][\/page_link][page_link title=”Make a Request<\/strong>” id=”1682628289330-0″ tab_id=”1682628289331-8″ link_url=”https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/library\/departments\/archives-museum\/requests\/”][\/page_link][page_link title=”About Us<\/strong>” id=”1682628290902-1″ tab_id=”1682628290903-9″ link_url=”https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/library\/departments-archives-museum-about-us\/”][\/page_link][page_link title=”Yearbooks Online<\/strong>” id=”1682628291529-0″ tab_id=”1682628291530-5″ link_url=”https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/library\/departments\/archives-museum\/yearbooks-alumni-magazines-delta-state-histories\/”][\/page_link][\/page_submenu][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” column_margin=”default” column_direction=”default” column_direction_tablet=”default” column_direction_phone=”default” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” row_border_radius=”none” row_border_radius_applies=”bg” overlay_strength=”0.3″ gradient_direction=”left_to_right” shape_divider_position=”bottom” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” column_element_spacing=”default” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1\/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” bg_image_animation=”none” border_type=”simple” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][vc_column_text]Interviewer:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Charles Pearce<\/strong><\/p>\n

Interviewee:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 B.F. Smith<\/strong><\/p>\n

Date:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 June 28, 1976<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

C.P.:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 This is Charles Pearce interviewing Mr. B.F. Smith.\u00a0 Today is June 28, 1976 and our location is the Delta Experiment Station at Stoneville, MS in the Delta Council Office.\u00a0 The top for discussion today is the impact of James Hand, Jr. on Delta farming. To begin with, Mr. Smith, what has been the significance of Mr. Hand\u2019s leadership role in the area of Delta agriculture?<\/p>\n

B.S.:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 First of all, let me say the Mr. Hand has been and still is one of the most outstanding leader that this area and the state of Mississippi has ever produced.\u00a0 Secondly, Mr. Hand is a person who has never sough honors.\u00a0 He is quiet and unassuming.\u00a0 He has provided the outstanding leadership by the sheer weight of his ability and his personality.\u00a0 He and his father came to the Delta area from South Mississippi back in the period, I believe, before World War I.\u00a0 They had been in the timber business in South Mississippi and they had been quite successful.\u00a0 They came into the Delta in the timber business and purchased large areas of bottom land hardwoods.\u00a0 In the aftermath of the war when the wide swings in prices, the timber business became very rocky.\u00a0 He often said they made all their money in timber and that they came in here and lost it in the Delta and that he\u2019s been trying to get back on his feet ever since.\u00a0 But, he said that he kind of backed into farming, in the acquisition of some lands in Sharkey and Issaquena Counties.\u00a0 Also, he formed a partnership with Jere Nash and Mr. Sibbs in the International Harvester business.\u00a0 They came to be the single largest International Harvester dealer in the United States.\u00a0 Mrs. Hand, because of his very keen intellect and interest in economics and a keen perception for the future, was trying on his own land various agricultural practices, utilizing to the very fullest the technology developed at the Delta Branch Experiment Station.\u00a0 My association with Mr. Hand began in 1947 when I came to Delta Council.\u00a0 He had been a president of Delta Council.\u00a0 The Council was organized in 1935 and Mr. Hand was one of the early presidents and made a very outstanding contribution in this position.\u00a0 He remained as a Delta Council Director and as a\u00a0 Committee Chairman.\u00a0 He served in various capacities.\u00a0 He was chairman of our Advisory Research Committee of Delta Council at one time.\u00a0 This is a committee that works closely with the Experiment Station and with the U.S.D.A. and, in fact, with all phases of agriculture research.\u00a0 It is composed of leaders from all 18 Delta and part \u2013 Delta counties and these people meet with the Experiment Stations.\u00a0 They review research and try to assist the research agencies in getting the tools that they have to work with , by tools I mean the funds and the facilities.\u00a0 Mr. Hand rendered outstanding contributions in this capacity and he has always maintained a keen interest in the research program.\u00a0 In his area of the Delta, because of the flood control and backwater situation, they lost their farm labor quite early.\u00a0 They had to make do with a lot less farm labor than other parts of the Delta.\u00a0 At one time, cotton production required a tremendous investment in man hours per acre.\u00a0 In fact under the old man and mule method, about 160 man hours per acre were required for cotton production.\u00a0 Today, under mechanized conditions, we are producing cotton at 14 to 16 man hours per acre.\u00a0 Some people who are utilizing advanced technology are actually producing cotton with less man hour investment than normal.\u00a0 Mr. Hand has always been in the forefront in this.\u00a0 The area of weed control was of particular significance.\u00a0 This was the period before we had any chemical weed control measures at all.\u00a0 What he did was to start hill-dropping cotton, that is, planting the seed in spaces on the row to eliminate the need for thinning by hand.\u00a0 Therefore, the hoe labor that was available could travel much faster.\u00a0 All they would have to do is to knock out the weeds and grass.\u00a0 They wouldn\u2019t have to thin.\u00a0 Later, he was one of the innovators in the practice of cross plowing, where you would plant cotton in a row, then come in with 4-row equipment and plow out the unwanted stalks of cotton.\u00a0 This also served to reduce the man hour requirements.\u00a0 Later, he was one of those who utilized flame cultivation as a corollary to cross plowing.\u00a0 The flame playing over the stalk of the cotton which is round didn\u2019t damage the stalk, but would hit grass which has a flat surface and it would kill it.\u00a0 This was a widely used practice at one time until we got chemicals.\u00a0 Mr. Hand also pioneered the acceptance and the use of mechanical pickers.\u00a0 The company that he represented, International Harvester, actually did most of the pioneer work in the development of the picker and a lot of it was done at Stoneville by the Delta Branch Experiment Station, and proven on the Hopson\u2019s Brothers Plantation at Clarksdale.\u00a0 We have here at Stoneville the first commercial mechanical picker produced was produced by the International Harvester Co. that was used at Clarksdale on the Hopson\u2019s Brothers Plantation.\u00a0 Mr. Hand\u2019s contributions were not confined strictly to agriculture.\u00a0 He was a great flood control leader.\u00a0 In the area that he resided flood control is a particular problem in that backwater area\u2026 he was a member, at one time, of the National Agricultural Advisory Commission.\u00a0 I believe this was in the period when Eisenhower was president.\u00a0 He was very active in the organization of the National Cotton Council.\u00a0 The Cotton Council was organized by Delta Council. \u00a0Delta Council cam into being in 1935 and one of the first projects of Delta Council was an area project to increase cotton consumption.\u00a0 The leadership immediately saw that this should be a national effort instead of just a local effort.\u00a0 So, they expanded their effort on a national basis and brought together a group of belt wide leadership at the Delta Council annual meeting in 1938 in Cleveland and held discussions.\u00a0 From that meeting they went to Memphis and actually organized the National Cotton Council.\u00a0 The first president was Oscar Johnston, who was president of the Delta Pine and Land Co. at Scott and chairman of the Delta Council Comm. studying cotton promotion\u2026Mr. Hand helped in the initiation of this program and the organization of the National Cotton Council and has maintained a very active interest in a position of leadership throughout all these years.\u00a0 He has also been interested in higher education in MS.\u00a0 He served on the Advisory Committee to the Council on University Presidents.\u00a0 He has been a leader in forestry and served as chairman of the Delta Council Commission\u2026He was a prime mover in the expansion of the research in bottomland hardwood in this area\u2026He tried out all of this innovations as they became available and some of his early cottonwood plantings are still visible in Sharkey and Issaquena counties.\u00a0 He also has provided a great deal of leadership in the field of agricultural credit and cotton marketing .\u00a0 He has been a member of the board of directors of the Staple cotton Association for many years.\u00a0 He is now a senior member of this board which means that he is an ex-officio because of his past service.\u00a0 He has received many honors.\u00a0 He was honored by Progressive Farmer with its award for Man of the Year in Agriculture in 1961 and has been honored by the Corp. of Engineers for his outstanding services in flood control in the Lower MS Valley.\u00a0 All in all, he has been one of the most outstanding citizens of this area and he still takes and active interest in all phases of agriculture and, in fact, in everything that pertains to the Delta.\u00a0 Just a few more comments\u2026Mr. Hand is a person that has done a great deal of good in his lifetime in a very quiet and unassuming way.\u00a0 When he found people in need, he would very quietly try to help them individually solve their problem.\u00a0 He like to do this anonymously if he could.\u00a0 He pioneered efforts in improving the housing conditions for farm workers.\u00a0 In fact, we utilized a great deal of tenant labor on the farms.\u00a0 He also pioneered efforts on his farm that the workers received the best salaries that they could get commensurate with the returns that agriculture was giving to the landowner.\u00a0 On his farming operation, he always kept meticulous records and he had records on these places that went back many years before he became the owner.\u00a0 These records are utilized a great deal by economists and others who are seeking information on the history of agriculture in the area, and especially the impact of mechanization.\u00a0 He has always had an\u00a0 outstanding production record.\u00a0 His figures on his cost of per pound production were so low many people actually doubted the accuracy\u00a0 of these figures, and some even said that Mr. Hand was just trying to sell farm equipment.\u00a0 Of course, this was not so, because this was the least of his worries.\u00a0 He was an innovator in agriculture and a man of great vision and a person who has contributed immeasurably to this area.<\/p>\n

C.P.:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Thank you, Mr. Smith for that comment.\u00a0 I\u2019m certainly impressed.\u00a0 Now for some more specific questions: Why was there so much resistance to mechanization of cotton production and how did Mr. Hand try to convince the Delta farmer that mechanization was a prime necessity?<\/p>\n

B.S.:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Well, to say that there was a great deal of resistance to mechanization, I don\u2019t believe is quite a fair statement.\u00a0 Farmers have always been slow to make changes.\u00a0 There is a tendency to want to do things the same way that you\u2019ve done it in the past.\u00a0 This is not confined to agriculture, it\u2019s characteristic of a lot of other things.\u00a0 There were many factors to be taken into consideration.\u00a0 One of those being that we had a great deal of labor in the Delta.\u00a0 If you moved to mechanization and displace this labor, then you had to fact the question of what did you do with these people.\u00a0 Many plantation owners and renters did not fully utilize the technology that was available, simply because the people were there to do the work and needed the work to make a living. World War II caused a great exodus of agricultural labor throughout\u00a0 the United States.\u00a0 These people were recruited for the war effort and taken in bus loads back to the North and Northeast for work in factories.\u00a0 This left somewhat of a vacuum.\u00a0Mechanization moved in steps to fill this vacuum.\u00a0 Actually, mechanization has not displaced farm workers.\u00a0 It moved in to fill the vacuum left by the exodus of farm workers.\u00a0 It was not until the minimum wage laws were extended to agriculture, after World War II, that farm labor actually began to be displaced by these outside factors.\u00a0 When they extended the minimum wage law to agriculture that you could no longer afford at the prices you had to pay.\u00a0 So these jobs were simply eliminated.\u00a0 While we had been moving away from the sharecropper system, we still had a lot of sharecroppers in the area simply because these people had been sharecroppers and they wanted to remain sharecroppers.\u00a0 Most every plantation had a half a dozen families or a few families that continued to operate as sharecroppers, although most of the land would be worked on a full mechanization and hired labor basis.\u00a0 But the ruling of the Dept. of Labor states that these sharecroppers were actually employees of the farmer.\u00a0 This is contrary to Mississippi law which had always ruled that sharecroppers were independent operators.\u00a0 But just because the plantation owner had the right to exercise some controls over the sharecropper, they ruled that he was an employee, and this meant the end of this system also, because sharecroppers historically had utilized a lot of members of their family in making their crop and the plantation owner could not afford to pay all those people for the piddling jobs that they did.\u00a0 So this meant that this was eliminated.\u00a0 In most cases, these people were allowed to occupy the houses that they had been occupying and they were utilized as much as possible on a day by day basis.\u00a0 Actually you didn\u2019t find resistance by the farmers to mechanization, per se.\u00a0 As the conditions changed you found farmers eagerly moving in and adapting to mechanized practices.\u00a0In fact, in the Delta area of Mississippi, farmers have always been very research\u00a0 minded and have been prone to want to take technology before it was fully proven and apply it.\u00a0 In many ways they have been in from t of farmers of other areas because of their proximity to agricultural research and because of their great interest in it.\u00a0 The station here at Stoneville started in 1904.\u00a0 It was actually started by a group of farmers who recognized the need for technology and who bought the land and donated it to the state of MS to start an experiment station.\u00a0 Every land acquisition since that time has come at no cost to the state.\u00a0 In fact, two big ones came from Delta Council.\u00a0 One was the experimental forestry land, 2,400 acres, that had been taken over by the state for taxes and the Council spearheaded a bill through the legislature which dedicated this land for forestry research by the Experiment Station.\u00a0 Then the acquisition of nearly 500 acres of buckshot land for the Experiment Station and this was set up through a Delta research foundation.\u00a0 When the land was paid off, it was deeded to the state of MS for experimental purposes.<\/p>\n

C.P.:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Was there really a rivalry for farm labor between the Lower Delta farmers and the Upper Delta farmers before the advent of the cotton picker?\u00a0 Certainly, Lower Delta farmers were faced with different problems than the Upper Delta farmers in the labor situation.\u00a0 Would you go into this a little?<\/p>\n

B.S.:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I mentioned earlier that because of the flood control situation, the farmers in the Lower Delta had lot less labor.\u00a0 There has always been some rivalry among farmers for farm labor.\u00a0 Usually after settlement time, in the late fall or winter, there was a lot of moving of families form one plantation to the other.\u00a0 This took place throughout the entire area, in fact almost throughout the entire south.\u00a0 The rivalry was not of the type that you would classify as open rivalry.\u00a0 It was just a part of the economic system that prevailed.\u00a0 The farm laborer to a certain extent has been fairly noble, and they moved around a good bit.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think that the rivalry was a matter of serious consequence.\u00a0 However, you saw some examples where people would lose their tempers at times.\u00a0 You see, we had to use a great many workers for two of the operation, one was weed control in cotton.\u00a0 When you had a year with a rainy spring and summer, the weeds and grass grew very fast, and there was a rivalry for the crews of hoe hands that came out of the towns and villages of the Delta.\u00a0 Sometimes farmers would try to divert crews from one are to another, usually by offering them more money.\u00a0 In the fall the picking of the cotton required additional workers form the hill areas of MS.\u00a0\u00a0 These areas, mostly small farms, would finish their crops before we did and these workers would come into the area and spend several weeks by providing additional labor for cotton harvesting.\u00a0 All of this is a thing of the past.\u00a0 We harvest our crops almost 100% by machine pickers.\u00a0 While we use a little hand labor in cotton chopping especially when we have a wet spring, it is not a significant matter in the economy.<\/p>\n

C.P:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Why do you think International Harvester\u00a0 was so far in the lead during the mechanization process?<\/p>\n

B.S.:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 For one thing, International Harvester was the largest manufacturer of farm equipment.\u00a0 Another, it did have dealers in the Delta that were very large and their sales and volume were enough to attract the attention of the manufacturer.\u00a0 Therefore, the dealers had an input in terms of need.\u00a0 The development of a mechanical method of harvesting cotton had been something that had intrigued agricultural engineers for many years.\u00a0 International Harvester didn\u2019t initiate this research.\u00a0 In fact, they uses and built on research that had been don by other people.\u00a0 Mr. Hiram Berry here at Greenville and Leland, was on of the pioneers in developing a mechanical harvester.\u00a0 His research was primarily financed by some doctors in Greenville.\u00a0 Mr. Berry\u2019s prototype picker is on display at Stoneville today.\u00a0 It has many of the features that were incorporated in the later pickers that became commercially important.\u00a0 The Rust picker was one of the early pickers.\u00a0 The International Harvester Research team borrowed as much as they could from all of these.\u00a0 But I would say primarily because of the importance to the economy of the United States and that in the Delta area you had the International Harvester dealers saw the need for this type of machine and exerted every effort to focus the attention of the manufacturer on solving these needs.\u00a0 Mr. Hand, being one of the dealers, helped to focus this attention.<\/p>\n

C.P.:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I\u2019m interested in the impact of mechanization on the farmer, himself.\u00a0 It not only brought prosperity to him, but brought new demands and new requirements on the farmer,\u00a0 particularly educational and managerial.\u00a0 Would you go into this a little?<\/p>\n

B.S.:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Yes, it certainly has brought about a great many changes.\u00a0 For one thing the capital needs for agriculture have increased tremendously.\u00a0 Ten years ago, we estimated that the average Delta cotton farmer had over $100,000 per worker invested in land and machines.\u00a0 This compared at that time to the investments per worker in industry of about $25,000.\u00a0 So, agriculture under mechanization has become capital intensive.\u00a0 This has increased capital needs and has increased the risk the farmer has to take, because he is just putting more money on the line to make a crop.\u00a0 Also, as you have adapted mechanized practices and chemicals, you have shifted from the investment of hand labor to the investment of manufactured good.\u00a0 These prices of these manufactured goods are determined by the price of steel, the cost of labor which is controlled by labor unions.\u00a0 These prices have a habit of going up and sticking and never coming down.\u00a0 In other words, they have no relation to the price which the farmer receives for his commodity.\u00a0 You might have very low farm commodity prices and very high cost of input items at the same time.\u00a0 This has placed additional demands. The use of mechanized practices has meant that farmers have had to be pretty good engineers.\u00a0 They\u2019ve had to understand the machinery that they use and be able to supervise the correct use of this machinery.\u00a0 When you started using chemicals, additional demands were made on farmers.\u00a0 They had to understand the safety practices that you had in the use of chemicals\u2026It has meant that the farmer has to be more highly trained than he ever had in the past.\u00a0 Most of our farmers have had college training.\u00a0 Many of them are graduates of agricultural universities and other universities throughout the United States.\u00a0 The farmer today is not the one-gall used man with a straw in his mouth that many people thought about many years ago.\u00a0 The farmer today is a businessman.\u00a0 He has a tremendous investment.\u00a0 He is a very sophisticated entrepreneur.<\/p>\n

C.P.:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Even though the cotton picker had proved itself, hand picking continued throughout the 1950\u2019s and 1960\u2019s.\u00a0 Approximately, when was the majority of the cotton crops picked mechanically in the Delta?<\/p>\n

B.S.:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 For quite a long time, Delta farmers had the capacity for picking the entire crop by machines before they utilized the machines to the fullest extent possible.\u00a0 The reason for this, again, we had a lot of people here.\u00a0 They wanted to participate in the cotton harvest.\u00a0 In fact, they like to pick cotton, believe it or not.\u00a0 They would quit good steady jobs in town during cotton picking season to go out and pick cotton.\u00a0 They picked in crews and it was more of a social occasion than anything else.\u00a0 This is hard for people today to understand, especially for some sociologists and others, but this is a fact.\u00a0 There acme a time, however, from an economic standpoint and the economics of the use of machines, it became just a lot more expensive to utilize hard labor for cotton picking than machines.\u00a0 If you paid the thousands of dollars that a cotton picker cost, you had to utilize it to the fullest extent possible in order to justify this type of investment.\u00a0 We also witnessed a change in the labor, they didn\u2019t want to pick as they had in the past.\u00a0 The quality of the picking deteriorated.\u00a0 At one time we though that hand picked cotton was of higher quality, but this changed over a period in which machine picked cotton gave a higher quality than the hand picked cotton.\u00a0 The field loss in machine picked cotton was at one time a deterrent.\u00a0 A machine going through a field that is almost completely open does leave some lint in the field, but studies at Stoneville showed that this loss was not nearly as great as a lot of people though it was.\u00a0 The cotton just happened to be strung out, and it appeared to be more.\u00a0 When these facts became know and when the economics of the harvesting process became fully recognized, farmers went entirely to machine picking.\u00a0 You\u2019ll see a little hand picking at the ends now.\u00a0 Occasionally you\u2019ll see a hand picker in the field, but most often you\u2019ll see two-row cotton pickers, not just one in a field but sometimes 12 or 15 in a large field.<\/p>\n

C.P.:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I understand that Mr. Hand was most influential in creating a Mechanization Research Division here at Stoneville.\u00a0 Do you know anything about this?<\/p>\n

B.S.:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Mechanization Research Project at Stoneville has played a very important role in the development of mechanization and the development of machines used in cotton.\u00a0 Mr. Hand has, as I mentioned, in the Advisory Research Committee which has strong inputs into the research program at Stoneville, helped to focus attention on these needs.\u00a0 A lot of this is financed through the U.S.D.A. and some by the state.\u00a0 They work together on this.\u00a0 He did have and influence along with the influence played by a great many other people in the area who saw these needs also.<\/p>\n

C.P.:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Mr. Smith, thank you so much for all this information.<\/p>\n

B.S.:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It has been a pleasure.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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