J. Knox Walker, Emeritus Professor of Entomology at Texas A&M University, was born in 1927, at Bryan, TX. He spent the first 10 years of his life living in a small “Arts and Crafts” home on the campus of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, a.k.a. Texas A&M University. During this time, many faculty and staff lived on the campus in houses owned by the college. Growing up during the Great Depression and in the middle of a college campus gave him a unique perspective on life. Professor Walker earned B.S. and M.S. degrees in 1950 and 1957, respectively, from the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas. After a brief stent working for the Louisiana Agricultural Experiment Station, he spent the remainder of his career beginning in 1953 and until his retirement in 1992 on the faculty of Texas A&M University. His entire career was spent studying insects and unraveling the ecological mysteries on one crop, cotton. Professor Walker can best be described as an entomologist, a naturalist, a historian, a teacher, and a keen observer of the human condition. Most of all he is a story teller in the finest whimsical and lyrical tradition.
This Perspective, A Question of Cotton, covers a wide time period from the 1600s to the mid-1980s. The immense backdrop of this Perspective is the social, economic, and political impact of cotton production worldwide, across the U.S., and within Texas. Make no mistake, this Perspective in its sharpest focus, is about cotton and cotton insect management. The primary point of this focus is the boll weevil, Anthonomus grandis grandis Boheman, and how U.S. cotton production endured the onslaught of this vicious pest and how, the industry survived. No other treatise so incorporates the broader social impact of cotton and its respective insect pests within the historical context of the U.S. than A Question of Cotton. The Perspective of Professor Walker may wander and bob and weave across an extensive historical landscape, but the reader is advised to hang in there as the treatise marvelously pulls itself together and faithfully returns to the subject at hand, the boll weevil.
A Question of Cotton lacks an abundance of cited reference material. The facts discussed in the document stand well on the accuracy scale because the author lived through and participated in much of what he wrote.
Owing to the retirement of Professor Walker, A Question of Cotton fell short in terms of being up to date. The last few pages of Walker's document refer to “today's” events. “Today” meant the time the document was completed in the mid-1980s, not current time. To address this deficiency, one of his graduate students, Dr. Roy Parker, Professor of Entomology and Texas AgriLife Extension Specialist Emeritus, has written a postscript. This Postscript highlights the immense success of boll weevil and pink bollworm eradication in the US, an accomplishment that even Professor Walker could not anticipate. It also documents the progress of genetic engineering and molecular biology in incorporating insect-resistant traits (Bt toxins) in transgenic cotton cultivars and other agronomic traits for cotton improvement. The Postscript includes several cited references that are germane to the Perspective in general and should satisfy those concerned about such things.
We hope you enjoy A Question of Cotton. A little advice to the reader before you engage this wonderful treatise. Because of Professor Walker's incredible vocabulary and literary style, you may need to have a dictionary or even a thesaurus closely at hand. I know I did. Enjoy the read!
Foreword prepared by Ray Frisbie,
Professor of Entomology Emeritus, Texas A&M University
