The opulent black soil gushed from the ground and laid bare beneath the summer sun. It oozed its vibrant, life-giving benevolence to the theater of creation around it.
The tall, slender pines were draped to shield those beneath from the heat that was being poured upon them. The air smelled of life run over, like gunpowder that may light at any moment.
But upon this vigorous stage laid the sea of Southern snow. Cotton in its virginity sparkled its purity; the daughter the men of the land were proud of. Every year they showed the same favor towards her in her pageant as they did the last by planting her again upon that same stage.
Cotton was the prize that they shipped and paraded around the world, showcasing the wonderful splendor they were fortuned to have received; untainted, undefiled, matchless beauty, the envy of the wealth of the nations.
It was daylight when she was defiled. Such a grand treasure could not be protected from the tiny thief. A boll weevil from out west had been traveling to and fro, seeking something he may devour. Upon coming to southeast Alabama, he set his eyes on the untouchable riches.
Their precious fields of cotton had failed. Their confidence in only growing the gold of the South, and nothing else, had turned to folly. Their way of life and the land now laid on the brink of the past. The house had fallen, the heirloom vase had been shattered. The boll weevil came and sowed destruction. The opulence of the soil had been tried and was nearly overcome.
The “Doctor”
His wrinkled hands scribbled across the paper like a boat crossing the sea. Writing administrative reports was like pulling teeth to him. He wanted to be out in the fields, applying his knowledge, passing it on face-to-face.
Lecturing out in his mobile classroom that he wheeled to each farm to students who looked like him was what he enjoyed best. But his discoveries that he had written down was what he was known for.
As his well-worn hands of a life time’s work slowly etched the pen into the paper, his mind drifted towards the various bottles and pots that contained his experiments. The university had a hard time keeping up with him as his overactive mind thought of new ways to use crops.
But there was a crying out in the land. A plague had beset the farmers in the Wiregrass. So George Washington Carver wrote the County Agent in Enterprise.
The riches of the soul had run out. There was nothing left to give. The reserves had been tapped.
The exhausted earth had no strength to give the cotton, no life for its limbs, no vibrance for its color. The ground was bankrupt, and was going to be foreclosed. The boll weevil came in like a carpetbagger, declaring himself king in the midst of the ruins.
Their only hope now was reliance upon a man who knew the land more than the boll weevil.
Restoration and Celebration
The long road to restoration laid before the people. Their plows had to be used again despite their heavy hearts. A new queen had to take the crown; peanuts were to be planted instead of cotton.
With humble reliance upon the professor, they got up each morning, before dawn, with the uncertainty of their fates, to work. As they toiled, the peanuts grew, putting back into the soil what was missing.
The life returned slowly; a gradual resurrection over 2 years through various rotations, giving sabbath rest to the ground that always labored. It took 2 years for the people to go from a place of utter darkness to the fullness of light.
When the boll weevil struck, 60% of the farmers faced bankruptcy, and by the end of the 2 long years, they had harvested the largest supply of peanuts in the nation.
In an effort to remember this strange act of providence, and how they had persisted and diversified their economy, they decided to build a statue.
It was ordered from a catalog, sculpted in Italy, and shipped to Enterprise. The statue was of a woman originally, and later received the addition of the boll weevil in her hands lifted above her head.
And so the Boll Weevil Monument came into being. And on December 11, 1919, the unveiling ceremony could not be complete without thanking the man whose research was the true help. George Washington Carver was invited, and gave a speech at its unveiling.