An InterviPw with Gene H. Berry and George Wood This document is a transcript of an interview with Gene Ho Berry and George Wood conducted by Adelynne Hiller Whitaker concerning early activity in crop dusting with airplanes. The interview was held at the home of Captain Wood at 3420 Northside Drive, Hapeville, Georgia on September 13, 1972. Mr. Berry became involved in crop dusting operations as a youth in Louisiana, joining the dusting division of Delta Air Corporation as a mechanic's helper. In later years he became superintendent of maintenance of the dusting division, and at the present time is a drop-press operator, and aircraft and power plant mechanic with Delta Airlines. Captain Wood joined Delta Air Corporation as a duster pilot, moving on to the airline operations, and is now retired from Delta Airlines. Mrs'. Whitaker is a doctoral candidate at Emory University, writing a dissertation on "Pesticides and Regulation. 11 Mrs. Whitaker: Mr, Berr~r, why don't you tell us someth:Lng about how you became interested in aviation and in dusting. Mr. Berry: Well, to go back to the ea:,:-ly days, wRy back, I was raised on a cotton fc1.rm in Louisiana nea.r Monroe. One morning I was dusting in our field, and of course I waR riding a. m1Jle, and using a saddle gun that had the dust in :i.t. We user'! calcium arsenic and did two r.ows at a time, and I would t:nrn the crank and ride thP. mule down through the -field, That particular morning there was an airplane d11sting across the river. ·~ach time the plane t''''.''1'1ed, it would tu.rn got 111e thinkin::; s 1::iot:t ~ irpl2nes. Mrs. Whit8'k:er: ~ow old vrnre ~"011 ther:.? f'0:i:- T:'8 to go to work for D0l tB., 20 I went 011-': -'::here 8.'1c! kept afte~ them until they gave me 8 job. M~s. Whitaker: And Delt~ w~s already at Monroe? 2 Mr. Berry, Yes, that was in 1931, but the company was Huff Daland Dusters at the time I first saw the airplanes dusting. Mrs. Whitaker: And that is the same company that developed into ••• Mr. Berry: Delta Airlines. Mrs. Whitaker: What did you do for them when you first went to work? Mr. Berry: I went to wouk as a mechanic's helper and I worked from there up to superi:rtendent of the shop of the Dusting Division of Delta Airlines. Mrs. Whitaker: And :;ou stayed consistent,_:" in Monroe through most of those years? Yes, I was in Monr,:i~ until, well, ! stayed with the comyiany unt::1.11950, and I loft the company a.nd went to farming. I took a, job on a plantation south of Monroe as an assistant farm manager. And ther.. from that to one at Gillam, Louisiana and then, south of Bozier City, Louisj_ana. I came "back with Delta in •59. All during the -time I was working on these cotton plantations, we did all our dusting by airplane, and it h2.d developed into spraying, too, by that tirrie. 3 Mrs. Whitaker; That was one of the things I wanted to ask you about. When you were first with the company, were they using only the dust? Mr. Berry: Only the dust. C8,lcium arsenic was the one thing we had and then later on, well, I don't remember all the different kinds, but benzene hexachloride was one of the ones that was used. It was real good, and we used tetraethyls also, which were the deadly poisons. Mrs. Whitaker: Was that in the fifties? Mr. Berry: In the late '40s. Let's see, we built our first sprayer in •48, and right about that time we started ... Mrs. Whitaker: You began using the new synthetic insecticedes at about that time? Mr. Berry: And those things, of course, were pretty pote~t. I guess that's the word you'd use. You had to be pretty careful. Mrs. Whitaker: Can you recall what kind of precautions you were instructed to use when handling calcium arsenate in order to nrotect your health? Mr. Berry: Well, it wasn't forced on you or anything like that, but you were told +.o be careful, of course, and it was poison. Vie knew that. We had studied about it in school, and we had little masks that when we were working on the airplanes arOlind where there was dust, if we were vyorking around the hopper, we'd put these masks on and if we would get dust er us, we would change clothe"' ?nd stayed clean. I mean 1 7"'"''1 had to do that. Of cour20 +he calcium arsenic wouldn'+ II burn you or anything li~e that. The arsenic, if ynu would /\nd you ew ry~. P. 2, Coad? Pe was with the co~pany. He was an adviso~ +o Delta back when he was still w~tt the Departrrent of Agriculture 1~ Tallullah, end then, it ~ust have been in '32, he came to wor1T ::"o:'.' Del ta. As an entcmologi~+? Mr. Berry: Yes. Mrs, Whitaker: Did he ~~Prare the poisons himself? 5 Mr. Berry: N".l, ,,,hey were prepared by the differ0nt companies and were ready-mixed in b8.gs or barrels. Used to get them in those hundred pound barrels. They were metal barrels, remember those old metal barrels? We'd just chop them open with a I hatchet and pour the material in the hopper. Mrs. Whitaker: Do :'.>rou remember any of the companies that supplied you? Mr. Berry: Chipman was one of the main companies, and we used a lot of Sherwin-Williams materia.ls also. And various other companies. I don't remember which ones. It depended on the locality of the co1.,mtry we were in. Mrs. Whitaker, When you say locality, they you moved around with the dusters as they went from area to area? Mr. Berry: Right. Our headquarters and overhaul shops were in Monroe, Louisiana, and we always had·a unit in Mississippi, around Clarksdale, Greenwood, and Greenville and Scott, Mississippi. We had a.bout ten or twelve airplanes in that area every summer. k nd we also had airpla.nes in Bryan, Texas. In the winter we would go to Florida and dust vegetables. 6 Mrs. Whitaker: Then you dusted vegetables as well as the cotton? Mr. Berry: Yes. Mrs. Whitaker: Primarily you started out during the summer at Macon, Georgia. Were they dusting cotton in the Macon area to begin with? Mr. Berry: That was all cotton~. In other words, that was the reason the company was set up. Huff Daland Dusters was set up to fight the boll weevil. They got so bad in the early twenties it looked like they had to auit raising cotton because they would just eat the crops up and that's the reason that Huff Daland Dusters was formed. They stayed in Macon one year and then they moved to Monroe. I don't know the exact date, but the company changed to Delta Air Service and then to Delta Air Corporation. Mrs. Whitaker: And the company had people working for it, ground crews, mechanics, and people who actually poured the uoisons in the hopper? Mr. Berry: Usually the plantation furnished the loading crews. Mrs. Whitaker: Oh, they did? 7 Mr. Berry: When we first started using sprayers, we had mixing trucks that we used to mix the materials with water and pump into the tanks in the airplane. We had an opera.tor go vri th them and that's all he did, was mix these materials and then put it in the airplane. Mrs. Whitaker: Now this was the liquid you are talking about. Was there a great deal of technical transition you had to go through with I the airplanes when you changed from dust to spray? f' Mr. Berry: We didn't change them. They were either dusters or either sprayers. Mrs. Whitaker: Oh, I see. Mr. Berry: And the duster had what they call a hopper in it and the sprayers had a tank with pumps and a boom on the wing. Mrs. Whitaker: What determined whether you would use dust or spray? Mr. Berry: Well, it depended on the kind of poison that they wanted to put on, and then too it depended on several different factors. Now they could use spray in the day with up to as much as a fifteen or twenty mile an hour wind, but you couldn't use 8 dust, only early in the morning or late in the afternoon when you had moisture on the cotton to hold it or whatever crop you might be dusting. Mrs. Whitaker: Which do you think presented the greatest hazard to you as far as staying away from the poison? Mr. Berry: Well, you had to be careful with the liquid more so than you did with the dust, I think, because the dust wasn't as bad as tre liquid. A lot of that liquid was the kind if you got it on your skin, I expect that tetra.ethyl was one of them, I think Ortho out in California came out with it, and if you got it on your skin and left it on there, it. had a good chance of killing you if there was much of it. Mrs. Whitaker: Did you ever,yourself experience any kind of had results from the dust? Mr. Berry: No, never did in all the years we worked with it. Mrs. Whitaker: Didn't you wear gloves? Mr. Berry: I wore gloves mixing the materials. A lot of times when you were working with a spray boom or cleaning out nozzles or something like that, you didn't have time to use gloves or 9 they were cumbersome. All you had to do ·was wash your hands real good, and then we had a lot of insecticides that weren't real bad, like toxaphene, That was one that was used a lot. Mrs. Whitaker: This is in the later period, then? l.V!r. Berry: We did use some toxaphene dust, but most of it was liquid. lV!rs. Whitaker: And this would have been in the 1950's. Mr. Berry: Yes. And I don't remember all the different brands or types of insecticides that we used, but they were insecticides that were pretty strong, because you'd use ahout, oh, maybe a pint to the acre and some of them were a half a pint to the acre mixed with either o:re or two or three gallons of ·water, whichever was the best, you knov,. But about three gallons of water mixed wit~ the concentrates and crrayed on the crop was the most desired. !'!Irs. Whitaker: Captain Wood, le..i. ~'.E' 2.sk yrrn wN:1.t your ~"' ..,o J.lect5 ons arP. anrl hryv you became inte~~~ted in the dusting business. Well, .going ·w8.y back to the beginn5_ng, I learned to fly ir I 192? 2.nd ther, T barnstormed up through the thirties, and things in the flying b,,:-:iness was very sl01..1r back in those days, nQ 10 jobs, and of course 1 when a guy give 1,11, trying to make it on his own, there w2.s '3. :cn:nor going around that you could go south and dust cotton. Mrs. Whitaker: So when you say, "making • l .L t, on your orr:," was that in reference to the old air shows ... Capt. Wood: Yes, and com'Tiercial aviation with what use one co11ld be nromoted with a plane. Mrs. Whi t'.8,ker: So dusting was a l~st resort, then, for ..• Capt. Wood: That was usually the last resort for the pilot. They w0uld (so down and try out for d1isting cotton. I W8.S dovvn in Florida, barnstorming, and Delta Air Corporation had a unft at Homestead, Florida. They were dusting vegetables, so that was the first duster I had ever seen and we operated off of the same field with Delta's dusting unit, and I got acqu~inted with some of the Delta dusting pilots. Mrs. Whitaker: Now these were the other men who were already dusting? Capt. Wood: They were dusting nilots on the unit based there. I became acquainted with the chief pilot there and asked him if he knew where I might get a job, and he said, did you ever try 11 Delta? I said, no, and he said, I'm goine in to Monroe in a few days and I'll talk to Mr. Woolman about you. They called me to come down to Monroe to try out for dusting, and I I was hired, That was where I started dusting with Delta. I 11/Trs. 1rlhi taker; I When you say you tried out, did they have yo1.J actually '_!.O I out with dust? I I CaDt. 1Nood: II They would have you fly the airplane and tell you what they wanted you to do, then they would decide whether or not you I were crop dusting material. Mrs, Vfhi taker: And you would take the chances to get the ..• Capt. Wood: Wriether they wa.nted you, where yon ·would be a.ble to fly ..• Mrs. Vlhi taker: Of course, you were a very young man at that time? Capt. Wood: Rather young. Mrs. Whitsker: Did it ever bother you, the danger that was involved with not only the flying, but with handling poisons which .•. Capt. Wood: No, it really didn't. We were too busy to think of any danger. We really didn't realize the danger that possibly could have 12 been in the poison by breathing or swallowing it. One of the things I do remember about it was when we started out at the beginning of the season for the first week or two it would make some of us ill sometimes. as one's system was not used to the noison. Mrs. Whitaker: Then this was the calcium srsenate? Capt. Wood; Yes, at times it would ~ake one very sick. Mrs. Whitaker: What 1d 11.d of symptoms? How did you feel? Nausea.ted? Capt. Wood: I That's right, like you eat something that was kind of noison. I But aftP-r a couple of ·weeks we would get immune to it, and could breathe a lot of it and it wouldn't affect us. ; Mrs. Whitaker: I l Did you get much of it in the urocess of dusting? We~e the I fumes pretty well i.n back of you? Capt. Wood; ' No, the hoppers were in front of us. but they were pretty well sealed. We sat behind the hoppers, And unless you got a leak in one of them, you usually wouldn't get any poison in the cockpit with you. The worst trouble we had was with the loaders, they were from the plantation, the planters furnished the loaders. Sometimes they would get a little careless and would spill some of that dust in the codcpi t, and of course when they did, and we took off, dust boiled around in the cockpit for practically the rest of the motning, and we breathed quite a lot of it tha.t way. That happened quite often. Mrs. Whitaker, What kind of action did you take, other than washing yourself? You mentioned, I think, something about using milk to •.• Capt. Wood: That was for sulphur. Sulphur affected us more than calcium usually, because if you got sulphur in your eyes, it was almost impossible to keep it out, especially if you didn't have much drift in the morning, it would just boil out on the swath and when you come down to the next swath you would have to fly through some of it in order to get your dusting at the proper poundage per acre. Mrs. Whitaker: What were you putting this on? Capt. Wood: On cotton, mostly for flea hopper. The flea hopper was the first thing that would damage the cotton. That would be the first thing we'rl use when we'd start out the season would be sul-phur. Before the cotton got too large. 14 Mrs. Whitaker: And that was put on in dust form, also? Capt. Woods Yes, it was very inflammable, too, It could ignite, explode. Catch fire. Mrs. Whitaker: And you would use the milk to wash ••• Capt. Wood, When you'd get that in your eyes, it was really rough. It would really set you in misery and we would try everything we could think to use as an eye wash because it would be several hours before the effects of it would leave you. We would buy milk and lay down and pour it in our eyes. Every­ body seemed to have a new theory he thought would work and we tried several remedies. Mrs. Whitaker: Can you remember some of the other remedies? Capt. Wood: Well, we used water, milk, honey mixed with water, about ever~rthing we would think of. Some had very wild ideas; none of them worked very well, Mrs . Whi t8ker: Did any of you ever become ill enou.gh to see a doctor during the time? Capt. Wood: No, the onlv -time I saw a doctor was when I got malaria in V ~ ---------- ----------- ---------- :!. .5 Mississippi. That was the nnly time. Mrs. Whi t8.k0r: That you had to hav~ medication? Capt. Wood: I was doctored fo~ ~alaria. Mrs. Whitaker: Do either of.' you h2.ve 2J•:y comment O'"'. the -.ef:'c~+, that t1-,r-> +.~-~ T,"!,rrye ,e,.; "" topper an•'! the boll worm, but 11.rere you k5.1ling other insects as well, that people -rnieht ha·rc co-rr:plained about? Well, now the calcium arsenic of c:.>'r::'?P was very poisonous. It was mixed in a rd:~ture, I don't knovv hov-1 much the percen­ -+;2 re was, but it was a small amount of calcj_1_m: arsenic mixed with a large amount of 1:i.rne. But if it got on the grass and a rabbit ate it, it ·would kill the rabbit, just like it wo1,1ld the boll weevill, or if it drifted far enough ~nd they got enough, it would kill a cow. And they had a few instances like that, but I'm sure, of course, that the beneficial insects, too, went right along wi~h the boll weevil. Mrs • Whi ta.ker: How about in the springs? Did you hear anything about water pollution? Was anybody concerned about that? t6 Mr. Berry: The only thing that I know of where it h1-1rt the fish was from toxaphene. Mr~. Whitaker: This was in a later period? Mr. Berry: Yes, that was in the fifties. As far as the the calcium arsenic, I don't know of any water nollution at all. Mrs. Whi taJrer: Well, I saw one photograph taken in this period that showed the aircraft coming dow~ about six feet above the cotton plants. People were 2.ctually standing to both sides watching this and they were in the drift. They were ~ot concerned about the drift? Did you have many Sunda.y spectators? Ca.pt. Wood: You had 2. lot of people who would sto!) along on the highway if you were dusting close to the highway. '11hey would s+;o::i 8.nd watch you. The peo-ple working in the fields would 2.lv,a:ys watch the dusters. Sometimes on Sunday if we were doing eveninE, dusting v,re would h8.ve quite a large gathering of spec- tators, Mrs. Whi t8.ker: Did you ever have any experiences, Capt. Wood, with people having to dodge out of your way? 17 Capt. Wood: Yes, there were times that I did. One of the things I might mention, at times some of the people who worked on the plantation would have little gardens out in the cotton field, and the planters would tell us not to pay any attention to them, just go ahead and dust right over.them, but, of course, t we'd try to shut off as much as possible when we'd pass over them, but usually the drift would settle over and get them anyway. Mrs. Whitaker: And these would be vegetables ••• Capt. Wood: Yes, little vegetable gardens and of course calcium dust would kill it completely. Mrs. Whitaker: Oh, it would kill the plants? Capt. Wood: Yes, it would completely kill the gardens, ruin it. Mrs. Whitaker: Were there any repurcussions from neighbors of the people, for instance, that you were dusting for? Capt. Wood: Sometimes they would throw things at us as we flew over. We tried to protect their gardens even though the plantation owner told us to dust over them. The gardens were not supposed 18 to be planted in the cotton fields. Mrs. Whitaker: For instance, if a cow was accidentally killed by a drift, did the owner of the cow generally show animosity toward the company or to the owner of the land who was using the services of the company? Capt. Wood: Oh, yes, Delta had several lawsuits over the loss of cattle. Mr. Berry: Well, none of us know too much about it, but I think it was worked out between the planter that we were working for and the company,and of course they'd ta1rn care of it, yon know. Capt, Wood: I know of one time at Indianola, Mississippi, they said I killed nineteen head of cattle, and of course the company said that they were the most preciovs cows in the state when it came to settlement in the lawsuit. Mrs. Whitaker: Did they generally settle out of court, do you know, or were any of these actually ta.ken into court? Mr. Berry: As far as I know, it was all out of court. I don't remember a court action, but if there was a pasture close, they'd try to move the cattle. They were pretty cautious about those things. t l 19 Mrs • Whitaker: Delta would try to ••• Mr. Berry: Well, the planter would take care of it, usually. Capt. Wood: We had no trouble along these lines unless the drift was reversed by the air movement. Sometimes you'd start dusting and the drift would be·frorr the right but in 8D hour or so, before you finished it would reverse. If a pasture was lo­ cated such as to be effected then it could mean trouble. Once a pasture was poisoned, it remained affected until they had rain. Mr. Berry: You had to have rain to wash it off. Several big dews would take care of it usually, too. Mr~. Whitaker: And the cattle were not allowed to graze, .. Mr. Berry: No, if one drifted over, they usually got them out of there, if it did happen. Capt. Wood: Yes, whenever they knew about it, they would make efforts to move them fast. Mr. Berry: They tried to be pretty careful about, you know, not dusting 20 other crops than the cotton or whatever they might be dusting, because, take soybeans, calcium arsenic kills soybeans. Mrs. Whitaker: Oh, I didn't know that. Capt. Wood: If you dusted a bean patch, it would completely kill the beans. Sometimes a pilot would mistake a bean field for a cotton field. Mrs. Whitaker: That sounds like an interesting story. Capt. Wood: They gave us a special training course so we could tell cotton from beans, and at 80 miles ner hour and six feet high, you could hardly tell t;he difference if not carnful. When young, the plants kind of look alike, You had to b0 rcs.l careful, because sometimes they ·1Nould h8VA a bean field joini~z ~ ~otton field, and if you didn't watch the 2.rr,:;2.ge a21d know your maps good, you'd whiz right on over one of those bean fi0lds and of course, that was the end of the beans. Mrs, 1:Vhi taker: It sounds as if you mizht have learned that first hand? Cant. Vfo()d,: .,_ T rrot in the wron_g-- field once or twice . :::, . , ·- ) 2t Mrs. Whitaker: Wh~t did the com~any usually do in A case like that? Did they replant for the people, or ... Capt. Wood: The company would for the damage. Mr. Berry: I think so, too. Capt~ Wood: I think they settled out of court. Mrs. Whitaker: What do you remember about Dr. Coad himself? What was the extent of his participation after yov werR both working in this? Is there anything you can recollect ahout him? Mr. Be!'ry: He always headqu~rtered where the largest u~it was. If it was in Florida, he went down there in the winter, and if it was in Mississippi, he"d e;o down there, IJ"l the summer, thou~h, he'd work betvrnen Bryan, Texas, and Mississippi, and he was pretty close to it. And of course, he didn't stay in Monroe very much because he didn't have t:hr:e. rrhere were dusters 8.11 over the country, you know, and he was with them. But he did stay in the field pretty well, and he had his c~ew of field men and entomologists under him, 8.nd they would a.11 get their instructions from him ea.rly in the morning and then ) ) 22 they'd all go out and at night they'd come back in and make their reports. Mrs. Whitaker: He conducted experiments right along with this, I suppose, to determine what kind of poison you were going to use? Mr. Berry: Yes, he worked pretty close with A&M colleges, especially do,rm in Bryan, Texas, Mrs. Whitaker: Bryan and the college there? Mr. Berry: He took their recommendations and there were a lot of recommendations he could give them also. Mrs. Whitaker: I can imagine. Mr. Berry: He had worked out a lot of different formulas in the earl~r days and after he left the Department of Agriculture and went with Delta, he still worked out a lot. Mrs . Whitaker: And did you have any personal dealings with him? What kind of man was he? Was he easy to get along with? Mr. Berry: Well, I would say he was, yes. Because I worked for him after the airline moved to Atlanta, and he was manager of 23 the dusting division. I worked directly under him the years I stayed with the company. And we got along all right. Mrs. Whitaker: He was a rather forceful man, though, in his opinions? Mr. Berry: Yes, when he decided somethingf that's the way he wanted it. There wasn'+. any variation, really, Mrs. Whitaker: I read an article or a critique of an article that he did about someone who made some claims abou~ dustinq that he '"' didn't agree with, and I think he prefaced it with something about "it's pure baloneyfl and went on from there, and he seems to have been a rather colorful man. Do you have any recollections about him, Captain Wood? Capt. Wood: Well, he was a slow, easygoing man, I remember, He usually always wore a pair of leather boots, always smoked a pipe. Mrs. Whitaker: Did you, Mr. Berry, continue to supervise the loading of the planes in the later years, in the 1940 1 s? Mr. Berry: No,all of my work was with the airplane itself, the construc­ tion and the maintenance of it. But we did work out the tank trucks with the pumps on them, and then put an operator on it and sent him out. Sometimes I'd go out into the field 24 but not too often\ The only time I went out was when they had an airplane down, to get it back in the air. Mrs. Whitaker: Did you have any number of accidents that you recall? Mr. Berry: Yes, we had several accidents while I was with the company. Mrs. Whitaker: Do you think that any of them were attributable to the effect of any of the poison on the pilots, perhaps? Mr. Berry: I really don• t think so. Most of th_em were from hitting a high line, or, I don't even remember one that was ever from an engine failure. It was usually from hitting something. Do you know of·any other than that, George? Capt. Wood: The only engine failure that I remember was Stanley Kluzek in the Travelaire. A broken crankshaft, but there was_ no damage to the airplane. He landed in a cotton field. No, I don't remember any. Mrs. Whita.ker: When you first quit barnstorming and went to dusting, you were not married at the time? Capt. Wood: No. J 25 Mrs. Whitaker: Were your parents and your family concerned about what you were doing? Capt. Wood: No, my mother didn 1 t know that much ab01Jt dusting. No, there was no concern. Mrs. Whitaker: Where did you live? I mean, was there a great deal of fellowship, camaraderie among the dusting pilots? Did you usually stay close to~the airport, or did you live separately? Capt. Wood: Yes. The pilots were a happy-zo-l1.,1cky bunch, and got alon,z very well, and most of the time we would stay on the planta­ tion we were dusting on, if it was a real large plantation •.. Mr. Berry: Like Scott, fnr inst2.nce, in Mississin:ni. .. Mrs. Whitaker: This is what I .•. That's right. And then other times we would stay in a hotel in the city and the airrl2.n0s would be based out at some field or in some cases at the local ai-rporT, Mrs. Whitaker: If the plantation did not have a •.. J 6 Ca-pt. Wood: And that would be 011r heq~ base, and of course, in the mornin~ dus~ 2nd had ~o he there and loaded un, ready to ~o 2t d2y­ or.ea.k. As soon 8.s it w2.s light en011r::;h 9 vvA wanted to be ready to go because we h2,d to :out out all the dnst v'e coulc'1 wh:i 12 the dew was on, and we'd h8ve to really get ar e~rly st~rt in ordet' to get it all finish~d. Mrs. Whi t?,ker 1 A.nd you co11ld dust again later in the eveninc? At times we did. So~e of the planters didr't want evening dust in,::. 11:h~y only W8,Pted the rnornin::" dust ins::. Others would use the evening dusting. Mrs. Whita.ket': A.hout how many hours 2, day would yrrn es+,irn2,te that you gene,:-- ally flew? Capt. Wood: I would say an average wbuld be about three or four hours. Sometimes it would be mo~e and so~etimes less. A lot of t\rnes it would depend on the terrain. If we had large fields and no obstructions, we cotild. fj_nish a lot f8.ster, b11+: if 'NP. h2d cut up acreag~ with trees and high lines and things like that, it was kind of a slow process because you had a lot more D (0 27 turning and winding around to do which used un time. Mrs. Whitaker: Much more dangerous, too, I would think. Capt. Wood: Very much so. Mrs. Whitaker: Did the CAA supervise or watch your operations very care­ fully? Capt. Wood: No, there was no such thing as an agricultural license at that time. I understand that they have that nov,r. The had a waiver for us to fly low and covered everything for that kind of flying. Mrs. Whitaker: The altitude and everything? Capt. Wood: I think it was 8_ low-flying waiver. Mrs • Whitaker: Did they ever send anybody out to ins~ect your equipment or did they depend on the maintanance company? Mr. Berry: Yes, they came around once a month, used to a long time ago. And checked your equipment and relicensed your airplane, but then we very seldom had anyone out in the field. They have gone out and looked at different airplanes over different 28 parts of the country, but then when they started this making mechanics designated inspectors, I was one of the first ones that ~ot one. My inspect0r's number was 45 and then they knew that I was going to do it right. There wasn't any other way to do it, you know. Now maybe I'd see the district in­ spector every six months and sometimes I'd have to call him to get him over there if I needed him, but then I took care of all the licensing of the airplanes and all the paper work and everything. Mrs. Whitaker: You evidently had a very good record, because I don't recall reading anything about any irresularities. Mr. Berry: We did our best. We had the best airplanes in the business. The best m2.in+;enance. I don't say that .iust saying it, it was true. Mrs. Whitaker: You started out with Huff Daland Dusters? Capt. Wood: Huff Daland Dusters and we had one Travelaire, it was a ~T 5 Travelaire which we used for dusting, and then we later went to Stearman, after the war, PT17, we converted those into dusters and sprayers and used those up until we quit dust- ing. 0 ti> 29 Mrs • Whitaker 1 I understand you built the Huff Daland yourself. Mr. Berrys We built three. We were the factory. In other words, when Huff Daland went to Delta, we had manufacturing rights to the aircraft. In 1937, we built three new. airplanes and got three new numbers on them. That was the only outright new airplanes we built. We built a lot and we'd have to have two or three feet of the tail section, or something like some part of the airplane or the fuselage, in order to keep the same number. But it would be a brand new airplane except for maybe that much of it. Mrs. Whitaker: You were with the company during World War II. Mr. Berry: Yes. Mrs. Whitaker: Did you encounter any difficulty getting poisons? Mr. Berrya No, because that was an essential business. That cotton of course was essential and so were the vegetables. And we could get parts and dust and fuel pretty regularly. We didn't have much delay on it. Mrs • Whitaker: Until DDT and the synthetic insecticides, you stayed with calcium arsenate? Cari you recall in what year you first began using another •.• JO Mr. Berry: No, I don't. But I do remember one thing, and that was after about 19 ~3, the weevil h8.d ,got immune to benzene hexachloride and toxaphene and other dusts we had, and we went back to 1 . . ca_ciu.m arsenic Mrs. Whitaker: Oh, you did, Mr, Berry: No, '5: it W8S, In '55 we dusted with calcium, the only way we could get rid of them, We had to go back to calcium ar­ senic and then, after that, I thin~ they ~~me out with new synthetics, I don't remember all the different names of them. Mrs. Whitaker: And ;:rou had mentioned, Capt. Wood, your primary concP.rn wa•s eetting the mixture at the right dosage per acre. T'he company 1 instruc+.ed you, -then, on this? Yes, one of the main things, if they would change to a dif­ ferent. brand of dust than what we had been 11sing, they wou1d. brief us on a nrobable correct setting to use. The hopper control had a nin and several holes 5.n }t, and you set it in the p~oper notch for the ,roper poundage, Different dusts would requi::-P different settings. ~1r. Berry: Some of it would seem to be heavier than the other, and it ,,1.T01,ld float faster. 0 (0 31 08.pt. Wood: Yes, you had to be real careful ca11se you'd lose a load of dust in one SW8.th if you didn't get th2 right setting. 5.nstance I never wj_J_ 1_ forget 'Nas dowr :fr Tclorida. A p12.r..L,,:- 11an a field of pole beans and there wa:"c sn·no certain inse8t that was about to eat them up so they put pyrethrurn on themi and they briefed me, wrapped me all up so that I'd be pro­ tected fro~ breathing any of it, and I volunteered. They asked for volunteers to put the r;:,.,...,3thrum out so I volunteered and I must have got a little snuff of it, it sure was :potent. Almost made me sick. Mrs. Wh.i_ taker: What reaction did you have? <:apt. Wood, Well, it was kind of sickish and it lasted a few hours and then I was all right. Mr. Berry: Anot:rier dust we used back for aphids, too, W8.s nicotine. Nicotine dust we used for 2.nh:Lds. Ca:pt. Wood: I remember that. Mr. Berry: Before we got the synthetics, and then that stuff was terrible, Mrs. Whitaker: Really, what •.. r Mr. Berry: It would make you sick to breathe it. Really, I guess it's just like, well, ~icotine will still affect you. You'd be working on a hopper or somethin.~ and it would have a lot of !'.icotine 011st in it, and it'd burn your eyes. You' rl ~et where you could~'t hardly breathe 'til you got out of it ae:ain. Like a non-smoker smoking a cigar for the first time. I wondered if you ever got lightheaded or woozy from this ..• Mr. Berry: I'm sure ws did to a. certain extent, but I think th8t nico- tine was the worst thing that we had to contend with as far as it affecting you, Now a lot of this other stuff you could get washed off before it would affect you in any way, but we were car~ful. Mrs. Whitaker, What crops did you pnt the nicot:5.ne on? On vegetables? Mr. Berry: The only place I remember is on cotton for aphids. And I ,Nasn' t too much in contact with the vegetables in Florida because I stayed i~·the shops in Monroe all winter, overhauling the airplanes. Once in a while I would go down there, hut not very often. 0 (o Mrs. Whitaker: I suppose that presented some problems on vegetables. You couldn't dust them too close to harvest and things of that sort. Were you particularly concerned with residue on the vegetables, for instance? Capt. Wood: No, one of the things I can remember, they had to be careful and not completely kill out some of the insects because insects eat insects and if ,they were completely killed, certain species of insects would take over and they would have to find the dust tbat would combat them. So it was a kind of a technical situation. Mr. Berry: It really was, because the ladybugs wi1.l do mN'ay with the aphids, they will do away with 'boll worms, the li-t;tle ones, different kind of worms. Mrs. Whitaker: You had to be careful not to •.• Mr. Berry: They tried to put on something. The experimental stations worked pretty will with that to try to find something that they could use that wouldn't ••• that's one reason, I guess, that the weevil got immune to certain poisons. Capt. Wood: Gene, one thing we might mention is that most of our entomo- m f l i f logists were college professors and teachers that would go out in the field on their vacations in the summer and •.• Mr. Berry: And work, like Mr. Leo Hartman. Leo Hartman taught me science in high school before, and during the summers he'd work for the company and then finally he just quit t.eaching and went to the company full time. Mrs. Whitaker: I see, as an entomologist for the company. Mr. Berry: But they were all, as George says, college graduates and they were scientists. But getting back to the years that we actually quit using calcium arsenic and went to the other dust, I don't remember. I'm sure that there will be some way that you can find out, Mrs. Whitaker: Oh, yes, I think that DDT was not even released, it was not even available until the late 1940's. Did you have any ex­ perience w:i..th DDT? Mr. Berry: I think we used some DD~. I remember that we'd have some dust that would be a mixture of maybe some toxaphene, some DDT and something else, you know, that put them together, and that way you could kill a weevil and the boll worm and 35 aphid or something like that in the same time. Aphid was one of the hardest things to kill, though, seems like. Mrs. Whitaker: Did either of you have any experience with the autogyro? I remember reading thatduring the 1930's it was suggested that the autogyro would be more effective as a duster, Capt. Wood.: There was one that operated off of the Homestead Airport while we had a unit there. It wasn't with our outfit, it was with, some private fellow had one for dusting down there, and they had quite a. bit of complaint about it. The best I can rernemher, the downflow was too great and soma, vegetables were darn;::i.ged. Mrs. W'hi taker: Oh, it actually damaeed the crop itself? Caut. Wood: And the helicopter was the s2.me way. Thr?;i had -to be caref111 with it, it damaged some of the plants. Mr. Berry: I dori 't thi.nk- they ever were real practical. There was some reason. They never worked out 8.s well as the airplanes. Mrs. Whitaker: Delta never did use the helicopters in its operations? T recall s<?.eing some dravrinO"s of an airship which was 11sed or was proposed to he used. Did you ever en~ounter an airship Mr. N0, never, ,~,..,, Put the PTt? m8.fl0 a good duster, 1)11+ 5-+; •,,r011J.dy,_•+, carry +.ho load, Cap+.. Wood: Of­ to I atrpl2ne? Yes, ~ rna:n named R8J.l"lw: tt:ei:- cr8.r::-red :L+: nr, in Mississ5pp:i.. 0 H0 hit - +,elephone n~le an~ then went into~ bog wit~ jt left. The only thin"!, that is lef'+, of it :is ::i. piece of fl:•j ng wire about 8 inches lon~. I use it :f"o!.' a letter onen.er. D:i.dn' -t rrurt J.V:r. Rainwater at all, bnt i +, sure did ·tear the 8.i:rplane ·1,n. Mrs. Wh5.t8ker: Well, th2t w2s or,e of the fo:rtuna+e th:i.ngs :=:ioou+ some of +,hose accidents. They did leave the pilots pretty well in+ac+. Mr. Berry: For the twenty years t.:rat I worked for Delta., we lost sever, nilots. 38 Mrs. Whitaker: Well, that's more than I had thought. Mr. Berry: The first one that I can remember was a man named Williamson, I believe. He was an army man, and he come over to try out for flying, and he had made several swaths across the field, you know, practicing. Mrs. Whitaker: Was he releasing dust? Mr. Berry, Yes, we used lime when they were practicing like George says, when they were trying out to see how they were going to do, well, we'd put lime in the hopper and let them lay it so they could see what they were doing. And he pulled up at the end of the field and I suppose what happened, he had been flying an airplane with a lot of power, and he thought this airplane had power, too, and it didn't have as much as he thought or something, anyhow, he spun in. Capt. Woods The Hu.ff Daland was an air:plane of its own peculiarities. There was no other airplane that I've ever_seen that was like it. It was strictly built for the job that they used it for and when you were flying it on the straightaway, the engine sat way down below the horizon. In other words, you could see 15 or 20 feet in front of you, you were setting out there looking straight ahead. And most of the airplanes back r 39 in those days, when you were flying stri;dght And level, the engine sat way up on the horizon. With a beginner, the~r'd brief them and explain to them the pe~uliariti.es. There was just one person :i.r the r:drpla.ne, so they ha.cl to brief the pilot completely on how to handle it. And for someo:n.e who wasn 1 + use d +.,o •J 1·+.,, a b eg1.nner, .. L"f'. .h e pu.]l e d rt . un to w.. h ere the engine was like a. norma.l airpl2ne, i -t. would stall. 'T1h~ airplPne had rn Yertical stabilizer on it, vert:i c2.l f:i.n, it was just the rudder, the whole r11dder turned, and the stall characteristics on :i.t were rruch different than Tl1ost of the airplanes that were hu.ilt in those da.ys. Mrs . Whi ta.ker: And J,rou vrould do m0st of your work hetvveen six anrl. eight feet above the crops th8t you were dus-ting? Capt. Wood: F5_ve to ten feet 8'bovP. cottnn, and ve,'!eta"bleR 8.'hout one foot:. Mrs. Whit8}::er: Oh, really? Ca.pt. Woo a.: You wanted to get as cloRe a.s yo1.1 could. Mr. Berry: Drag your wheels in it. Capt. Wood: When Luke Carruthers ·was dusting :in FTorida orH'! til'118, the plan+.e,... vms out watching him, 2.nd c8.rr,e runrdng hack over when 40 -they vvas loadine: and said, "Luke, fly jvst a littls lower, j 11 st 8. little lower." So the :next load of d11st, he d:,:-or,ned triP land~.r.z g:Aar in the potatoes, and of covrse he mov,red theTI" 0.f'f abo11.+. s:i.x inches abmTP the 7.-ro 1 rnd. So the farYJ1P,,. dash0rl back over in thn ,,j.cku:9 truck a.rid said, "Luke, just a little hie-her, just a little higher." rr:1hose pictures •.•rere taken 8t on the Del~~ Pine And it's safd to be the wor 7 .~'s largest cnt+on p~artation, 2.nd ~nd ths~~ ~~cy are loading. One stands in the 8octr~~ 1 the otherr, :hand -the drnrrs u~si to him. Thr:y vu:mld h2.ve the t'.)ps chopped 0ut while ''·'G were rutting o~it a load, and wben we co·me 7-:::i.d;: they vrnre really fast, they c\rould T"0 1 1r. the 600 pounds in therP iYl just a mat-1::e!' o-P '-" courle of rn.in11tes n:r RO. 01 (8 They d.idn. • t trans f'er j t to :::ir," n-'-: 1-,er container? It wo11ld ::;o Mr, O~e of them would he stardlng in the c0~~pit and there ~ould to h:1.rrJ 2.:r.d r1p 11.10111<'! catch i +, 8nd dump i +. right ovnr in the And thro~ the can nut the other side. They durrJp them right Ca1;+,. ,q ood: Th By 1.eft the er 3:i.n.e rnn11.ine; th:rou::i;h -!:;hat? a>:d the horper he :i.d abo1)t 600 nourids 0f' the r;ald. 1.Jm 8 rsenate? fl/Jr. Berry: Six f:0 e5.ght. 0 (0 Ca.pt. Wood: That's right. Calcium ~rsenic, 600 po,mds would do 100 acres. Our average was six pounds to the acre. Mrs. Whl talter: I see. Ca.pt. Wood: Do you +,hink we ha.ve a.nythinti: else here that's worth looking at? He's opening the C8J1s while the a.i-rplanes are out. dusting. Mrs. Whitaker: The company furnished the du.st but the planter furnished the loading crew for you? Mr. BerriJ: They furniRhed the dust and the lMtdine crew. Mrs. Whitaker: Oh, I see. They would buy the dust also. Capt. Wood: They would huy that dust by the t:r.r?.inJ..o:=.-td on a plantation like that. Mrs. Whitaker: I remember read:i.ng something about there being a shortage of calcium arsenate frorn time to time. Did +,his actua.11? affect your operations or were you. able to get i-t.? Capt. Woodt I don't remember any time; of course it could have been when I was at the shop and not out in the field. 0 <b iv~rs. Whitaker: And +,}-,en d 1Jrin~::: World War II, you said you did':i' +: havP -t;rm.1bJ.e 2.t alJ. get:t1.n5 5 +, because of the prior5.ty -!::h2.t w2.s . given ·+9 1.J. Did yon have any trouhle keepincr p5.lots d11ring -t;h.2. t time? WhRt dirt you ~o fnr pilots Mr. Berry: him off the airline ~nd pv+, him fly5.nz. C8.pt. Vlond: I was on the airlj_ne, the first two ye8:rS the~r' a send. rn.e ove·!".' to Missj_ssippi to dust. ~!Irs. r1Vhi taJrer: ·well, that•~ interesting. Capt. w·ood: There 1118s two of ns. Of r,ourse, we didn • t mind r;oing :i.n a way, because we were makin~ $180 a m.opth on the airline and over there we werP m-::i}:j_n.c:i; about $500 a m.onth. Mrs. tvhi taker: 1 It wasn't hard to persuade you? Capt, Wood: We didn't mind eating a 15-ttle dust. Berrv: . - - t.l But we didn't seem to have, I don't remember havin~ any trouble getti:nz p5.lots duriDe; thP. W8.r. Of course, you never 'Nould :[ei:: the sarnP. one evei:-y yea1'.' 1 you know. You'd have a Of (8' 44 new pilot next year, 1:1.nd he might be flying in India or some­ where. Mrs. Whitaker: Did you ever get men who mig}:lt be on leave or furlough who would come and fly .for you? Mr. Berry: I don't remember a.ny like that. Mrs. WhitA.ker: This, the photograph we are lookine: a.t, seems to be a field that would be fairly eas~r to dust. These are just roads? Mr. Be-r:-ry: That was some of the 'best, there. This was usually experiment cotton, a.nd this was Del ta Pine and Land over at Scott, Missis­ sippi, and these were experimental plots. Mrs . Whi +,aker: Of different varie+,ies of cotton? Mr. Berry: Yes. And th8.t wR.s ahout the o:'1.J_y -pl2.ce yo 1.1 'd find a squa.rP. field like that. Mrs. Whitaker: You have some pictures here of th~. • • Now w8.s this the one that you reconstructE>d? Mr. Berry: No, this is one of the old original airplanes. I thin1': that ~h· . +.,Ur.A ws.s mau~A~ in ,., .lP Y'J.c • ...,a.con 1 Tb P •• e.1·ieve. 01 (0 Mrs. Whitaker: What is the symbol that is on the sidi:>. of the cdrpl:=me? Mr. Berry: Thor, flying over the field, blmvin.g dust-011 it. Delta's insignia. Mrs. Whi ta.ker: And who designed that, do you 'k::now? Mr. Berry: No, I d0n•t. [ kind of think Mrs. Fitzgerald had her hand in that. I think she suggested it. Capt. Wood: That was 59, wasn't it? lVlr. Berry: No, we rebDilt 49. Oh, was it: Mrs. Wh:i.taker: was a Dt'o i ect th8 +, 8.1.I. of ~ ~ v-011 ~ 1indert.001r.. Do Mr. Berry: died mJ-s. 0 fb 46 after. Mr. Woolm2.n's neath, we had, I guess you'd say a lot of junlc in one of tro huilrl.5.n{';s ave!:' in Monroe. v,re asked about it, several 0~ us in the company, sn the directors gave the airplanes to the employees 8.'".d we in tur)'\. ::::mt up the mo "SY to 1 ~ r-:' it looked li 1'.:e +1.-. ..I. ~=- : ' • ,,arts ":1'!''"1'\'1,..,..,....., -~~ ·. ; . ' Th0 ~est one that's ever I t I read the stor:r of tl7."°_,_ t I Mrs. Whitslrnr: And t~~~ was the o~e you rebuilt. Mr. Berry: Ard that w2:.s th8 reason I chose that f1..1.sel2.::,:e to use. I t I lt'7 Q (0 Ai:."'C-C-Bft, 8Ccide1;~""' 1 "=l c ! .,.,.,_~liconter, A.pr ids, 35 Berry, Gene H., d1..1sti:1z, 1; mech~----:5.1;s' helper, 2; building o.:i.".'1;raft, 23, 2? t >'lS air.craft inB"!)ector, 28; -:";"'.intenanct~, 32; converts PT17, 37: rebnilrls :-ruff D2.l9.nd dust.er, h5-L1.~ Boll weevi~, ~, 15, 30 Boll worm, 1. 5 Calcium arsenate, 1., :, 1i-, 12, 17, 20, 29, 30, 34, 4? Carruthers, D1ke, 39 Cattle, poisoriing, 15, 18 Chi?man Chemical Company, 5 Civil Aero,·,311+,ics Administration, 2? College, Agricul tura.l, 2? Cotton, 6, 13, 29, 32 DDT, 29, 34 Delta A~r Corporation, 1, 6, 10, 1~ Delta Ai".' ~ines, 2 Delta Air Servic":' 1 6, 35 DApartmer,+, of' tv?:ricul ture, 22 Drift, of du8t, 18, 19 0 (0 1J11~+.in::r, eq1ii:::, 111 ent, 7, 30; cotton, 6, 13, 29, 3?.; vegetables, 6, 7, 20, 29, ~2-33 ElJ5ot·~, Henry, h6 Entomologists, 33-34 ~ish, killing of, t6 Flea hopper, 13, 15 Hartman, Leo, Jh Huff Da.land dusters, 2, 6, 28, 20, 36, _38, Ln In.sectid.des, see benzene hexachloride, calcinni arsenate, DDT, lime, Y)yrethrurn, !:'.icoti.ne, su].-p11ur, synt'<let5. cs, tetrae+.hyls, toxaT)hene Insects, beneficial, 15 Kluzek, Stanley, 24 Lime, 1._5,28 Nico+.5.re, 31-3? Oi:-tho Cornpan;:, R Pilots, ac+.ivities, Poisoning, from insPcticides, 4, 8, 11, 1?, 14, 31-1~: reme~ies, 4, A, G, 13 Py:r.ethrum, 3t Remedies, us0 of a~ai~st insecticide pnisoning, 4, 8, 9, 13 Sherwin-Williams Com:r,an:r 1 5 S:r:ectators, 0 ({;) Spraying, equipment, 71 material, 9 Sulphur, 13 S~mthetic insecticides, 3 Tetraethyls, 3, 8 Toxaphene, 9, 30, 3~ Travelaire, 24,28 Vegetables, dusting, 6, 17, ?O, 29, 32-33 Water Pollution, 15-16 Wood, George, as dustinf?' pilot, 9, 11, tJ, 18, 20, 25-?fi, 31, 38-39, 43 Woolman, C. E. , 11. World War II, 29, ~3 OH 01