Typescript reads: "Must we destroy 200 acres of cotton like this?" ask Mr. and Mrs. A.G. (Gus) Busby. The San Joaquin Valley cotton planter, pictured above with his wife and youngest son, (Eugene) Gene, has his life savings invested in a $14,000 cotton crop ready to be picked. Busby has fallen under the lash of the New Deal's Agricultural Adjustment Administration's cotton curtailment program. [words crossed out] A.G. (Gus) Busby, San Joaquin Valley cotton grower, who says he will lose his life savings if New Deal's Agricultural Adjustment Administration's cotton curtailment program forces him to plow under $14,000 of cotton crop, now ready to pick.
Photograph is image of letter, dated October 22, 1935, with official letterhead from the "United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Adjustment Administration." The letter is addressed to cotton farmer, A.G. Busby, called Gus Busby in the related article. Busby's whole name was most likely, "Adam Gusty Busby," and was nicknamed "Gus". Less frequently under other records, he's been recorded as "Gusty A. Busby" as well. The article details how the federal New Deal rulings of the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration have overreached, and possibly ruined Busby's livelihood as a cotton farmer. According to the story, the federal government discovered Busby leased a large portion of land he was not allowed to lease, and ordered him to plow most of his crop. The tone of the column is that of anti-big government and regulation. The pictured letter is the federal correspondence which informs him of not complying with his "contract."
