Interview of Edward Fred Knipling : tape transcription / conducted by Paul T. (Tommy) Stanford on January 21, 2000

47 Pages·2000·1.8 MB·English

by  Knipling, E. F.

UNTTED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
NATTONAL AGRICULTURAL LTBR.A,RY
ORAL HISTORY ÏNTERVIEW OF
DR. EDWARD F. KN]PL]NG
CONDUCTED BY
PAUL T. STANFORD
,January 21-, 2000
United States Department of Agriculture
L4 Independence Avenue
Washington, D.C.
TAPE TRANSCRIPTION
2
PROCEEDINGS
1
MR. STANFORD: Today is January 2I , 2000. re at the
2 VrIe '
3 home of Dr. Edward F. Knipling, in ArJ-j-ngton, Virginia. My name
is Tommy Stanford, and we're here today to conduct an oral-
4
history interview for the special col-l-ection at the National
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Agricultural Library on the Screwworm Eradication Program.
6
The scre\^/v/orm is a pest that's been eradicated using
1
I the Sterile fnsect Techni-que developed by Dr. Knipling, and it's
been eradicated from the United States, Mexico, and Central-
9
10 America, and the program/ to this duy, is ongoing in Central
11 America.
1,2 Dr. Edward F. Knipling, \,'/e're happy to be here in your
13 home today and thank you for participating in this oral history
L4 of the screwv/orm program. If you could start, please, by teJ-ling
15 us when and where you were born and a little bit about your early
L6 l-ife?
11 DR. KNIPLING: I vvas born in Port Lavaca, Texas, March
18 20,1909. Port Lavaca is in the southern part of the state on
L9 the Gul-f near the Gulf of Mexico. T was born on a farm.
We
20 had a farm of 150 acres. Cotton was the principle crop but we
27 had corn and, of course, some other feeds for the hogs and for
22 chickens and horses, and so on.
23 But cotton was the major crop. And we had a large
3
1 family and we did al-l of the taking care of the crops, members of
2 Lìne famity. My father and mother, and there were ten children j-n
3 the family.
4 Well, in those days, farming was a very difficult
5 occupation. People today, young people today, have no idea what
6 farming was like back 15 or even 50 years ago compared with
7 today. Everything, all the power was with horses and mules. No
B tractors, flo power tools, or no eJ-ectricity or anything of that
9 nature.
10 MR STANFORD: I guess that 150 acres was quite a large
11 f arm?
L2 DR KNIPLING: What?
13 MR STANFORD: In those days, that sj-ze, 150 acres
I4 KNIPLING: Yes, 150 acres, I think, was a little
DR
15 bit above average. But about 50 acres of the 150 acres was
16 planted to cotton and perhaps 20 acres and so on in corn and in
fl garden and in other crops. And the rest of ít \^/as for grazing
1B for cattl-e, dairy cattle, almost all- together. Although each
19 year there were some cattl-e, some of the cal-ves and so on were
20 qroh/n and marketed, if we could.
2L We also had up to four or five hogs that we sJ-aughtered
22 every year during the winter for meat and, of course, had
23 chickens and dairy cows to milk. We produced nearly al-l- of our
4
1 food back in those days.
2 MR. STANFORD: And how did that experience growing up
on the farm influence your did it influence your j-nterest
3
later in l-ife in your education?
4
DR. KNIPLING: On the farm of course, lust by
5
nature, I was interested in, you might sây, animal-s and plants,
6
1 but animals, in particular. I \^/as interested in hunting and
fishing and whenever I had the opportunity to do that and
õ
interested in nearl-y a1I wildl-ife, including insects, not only
9
10 because of their pest nature l-ike the housefl-ies back in those
11 days. You can't imagine how many houseflies there were around a
12 farm where you had fivestock and poultry.
13 We didn't have any way to control flies l-ike that.
14 People just tol-erated them, that's all. But there \^/ere other
15 insect problems. Tn growing cotton, the boll weevil- was a major
16 pest back in those days. There \^/ere years in which our cotton
I1 yield was reduced by more than one half or maybe three-fourths
18 because of the boll weevil. In some years, they were fess
79 destructive and perhaps the l-oss wasn't more than 10 percent or
20 something j-ke that. But it was tremendous l-oss.
l-
2I But the boll weevil \^¡as not the only pest we had. As
22 you can well imagine, we had leaf worms on cotton, we had insects
23 infecting the corn and tomatoes. And every plant that we grew,
5
1 there h/as some type of insect that was causing damage.
And we didn't have much in the way of ways to control
2
insects in those days. About the only thing that \^/e could use
3
4 was (inaudible), l-ike Paris Green (phonetic) or so on. They \^¡ere
used for insects that it would work on but it didn't work very
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well on many others. But there were other insects, insects
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infecting the cattl-e. There were ti-cks, I can remember. This
1
a was before the tick eradication program v/as undertaken and I can
stil-l- remember seeing ticks on some of our col¡/s, yoü know, half
9
an inch in diameter, big ticks.
10
11 And one of the more severe pests was the screv/worm.
L2 The screw\^/orm wouÌd get into the navaf of calves when they were
13 born or in pigs , or if there was any wounds on the animals. So
L4 they h/ere constantly having to look for and treat animals for
15 screv/worms when they occurred. And that \^/as a very unpleasant
L6 task. You can imagì-ne getting in a hog pen with a sow that has
L1 screwworms and try to handl-e the sow and treat it for screwworms.
1B MR. STANFORD: I'm sure that was a constant battle.
L9 DR. KNIPLING: That was something we had to do from
20 time to time, you
know
2I MR. STANFORD: Could you describe your early education?
22 DR. KNIPLING: The education we had, the only school I^/e
23 had up to the sixth grade ró,IaS a country school that \^/as about
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hal-f a mile from where r/!re lived. And there were probably each
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year maybe up to 25 students from the nei-ghborhood that went to
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this country schoof. It's just one big room and one teacher and
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went through six grades. And one teacher taught all six grades.
4
Going to school, I didn't especj-ally enjoy it but it
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\^/as somethj-ng that had to be done. And the only way I could get
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there h/as wal-king. I could walk by way of the road and go about
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I a mil-e but if I cut across the pasture and so oû, it was about a
half a mil-e. So naturally, I went that way.
9
And it wasn't very pleasant sometimes during the winter
10
11 when we had rain and we had to go and cross kind of a swel-l- that
12 during wet weather had water in it. It's not very pleasant going
13 through water on the way to school- every day.
I4 MR. STANFORD: After that education, what spurred your
15 desire to continue education after that?
76 DR. KNIPLING: Of course, after I finished the sixth
1,1 grade at the country school, I had to go to the high school in
18 town, which was about four miles ahray. For several years, 1t hlas
19 necessary to go by horses or buggy, but then later' they had
20 buses that woufd come and pick up the students and we went by
27 bus.
22 I en¡oyed hiqh school- although it was quite a task
23 going from this country school-, yoü know, one teacher and it was
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1 pretty rough to make that transition from the early grades to the
hiqh school- grade. WeIl-, a1l during this entire time, I had the
2
3 desire, vou might sây, to try to get a good education and go to
coIJ-ege.
4
5 But in those days, especially for country boys and so
oûr they didn't have the resources. And of course, for a family
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of ten children, you might say there wasn't any resources in our
1
family. But any\^ray, I decided I would like to college if I
()
9 could. And I decided that I woul-d go to Texas A&M. And I had a
10 hard time deciding what to major in but finally I decided that
1l the Agriculture major was what f was best qualified to prepare
12 for.
13 But f didn't know, to begin with, the first couple of
L4 years. You know, you didn't ma¡or in anything. You had to
15 select a major after, you know, the l-ast two years. And I had
L6 the probl-em of trying to decide what field of Agriculture I
wanted to major in. Well, I considered al-l- of them. I
L1
18 considered Animal Husbandry, Dairy Husbandry, Poultry Husbandry,
L9 Crops or what have you. But I final-l-y decided that I would major
20 1n Entomology.
2t MR. STANFORD: How did you come to that decision?
22 DR. KNIPLING: Vrlhat?
23 MR. STANFORD: How did you come to that decision?
B
DR. KNIPLING: Wel-l-, it \^/as in taking these various
1
courses, yoü know. You took courses in all these basic courses
2
3 in Agriculture. But it seemed when I took Entomology, it hlas
something that was more interesting to me and the others, for
4
5 some reason, I fel-t like I was a l-ittfe more qualified in
Entomology.
6
Of course, in those days, to begin with, I didn't
1
o realize until- I was in coJ-lege that a person might make a living
by becoming an Entomologist.
9
10 MR. STANFORD: So \^re v/ere talking about were there
11 professors at the University that had some influence on your
12 choice of Entomology?
13 DR. KNIPLING: They sure did.
14 MR. STANFORD: Who \^/ere some of those people?
15 DR. KNIPLING: I hias of course, in taking these
16 courses, one of the well, a couple of them, actualJ-y. A
tl couple of professors in the Department of Entomology impressed me
18 a great deal as they l-ectured. And I began to really appreciate
19 how important insects were to the welfare of humanity.
20 I didn't real-ize until- that time that such diseases as
2L Typhus and Malaria and what not caused the death of hundreds of
22 millions of people worldwide. Of course, I coufd observe what
23 damage j-nsects could do to plants and to animal-s, but to real-ize
9
1 from a broad perspective just how important insects \^¡ere to the
wel-fare of humanity impressed me very much.
2
And I was interested in the detail-s and the biol-ogy of
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the boll weevil- or the corn earworm or tomato worm or ticks, or
4
what have you. So it was stimulating, actually, the things that
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I learned in taking these basic courses.
6
And then when I realized that there was perhaps an
1
opportunity to make a profession out of Entomology, I decided I
B
woul-d major in that field.
9
10 MR. STANFORD: And tell- us something about your
11 employment history. Did you have jobs when you \^Iere in school,
I2 going to college, or other j obs before you fj-rst became employed
13 by the Department of Agriculture?
I4 DR. KNIPLING: Wellr ûo, the only jobs I ever had
15 before f went to college v/as if we had taken care of our crops
16 and so oh¡ I would maybe work for the neighbors or what not in
11 making hay or picking cotton or whatever it be. And of course/
18 if I made a dollar a day, that was pretty good income, those
19 days.
20 At college, I made a deal with my father that if he
2I would help my way through college, I would pay him for hal-f of
22 what it took to get me through college. None of the other
23 members of the famil-y had gone to college up at that time but
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that was the understanding I had with my father.
1
And I tried to meet the expenses at college as best I
2
could. I got a job as a waiter and this heJ-ped tremendously in
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meeting the costs of tuition and so on. And I also did odd jobs
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occasionalJ-y l-ike mowing people's lawns and so on
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But to make a rather long story short, the four years
6
1 that I went to Texas A&M College, University now, I had spent
$1,800, $1,800 for four years. And of course, I didn't get any
B
jobs during the summer. I came back and helped my dad on the
9
10 farm each sunmer. And cutting or picking cotton or whatever \^/as
11 requJ-red to be done.
I2 But I did do as much work in college as I could, odd
13 jobs to heJ-p pay for it. But then when I did get a job, the
14 first thing I did is I started paying dad back for the money he
15 had foaned me. And although according to the agreement, it was
L6 $900, but I gave him $1,000
I1 MR. STANFORD: Paid some interest back.
DR. KNIPLfNG: It took me about two years to save that
1B
19 much money to do it and the first thing I did after that was
20 bought me a car.
2T MR. STANFORD: And was that after you started working
22 for the Department of Agricul-ture?
23 DR. KNIPLING: Yes, thatrs right.