In the 1940S and 1950s when as youngsters we roamed the various cane fields in groups prior to the beginning of the crop season, to quench our thirsts, we never encountered the dastardly cow itch.
This menace appears to be a new – relatively speaking – dimension.
To solve this problem, I think about a menace plantation owners faced back then. It was a pesky, persistent, running plant that grew among the young cane shoots and had the capacity to choke them off. This plant was none other than the pond grass.
The plantation owners had a battalion of women who headed out early in the mornings with a cone-shaped basket, and their task was to uproot this pond grass before it played havoc with the young cane plants. It seems to me that the cow itch plant is most destructive in its flowering stage, when the plant is mature.
For the love of Moses, why do we wait until this late stage to react, such as burning the canes, or paying people to remove the plant?
So, I am offering this solution: employ some workers who would identify the plant and uproot it from among the canes in its early stage of development.
Then we wouldn’t have to burn the canes, there would be less air pollution, we wouldn’t have to breathe in smoke-laden air while we sleep, we would have more tonnage per acre, and thus we would earn more foreign exchange.
– VICTOR RUDOLPH FORDE