run scout, run!

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For people not familiar with the American South, you are probably unaware that it is being consumed, one foot at a time, by an alien plant. Put away your flags boys, if the South is ever going to rise again, it'll have to do it through layer upon layer of kudzu.

In 1876, kudzu was introduced into the U.S. at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition. Originally from Japan, the fast-growing member of the pea family was promoted as a forage crop for livestock and a backyard ornamental. In Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” it’s growing on the arbor off the Finch’s front porch. Today, it probably has consumed their entire house. Run Scout, run!

From 1935 to the early 1950s, the Soil Conservation Service encouraged farmers in the Southeast to plant kudzu to reduce soil erosion. They did, and it did. The Civilian Conservation Corps planted it widely for many years, but the aggressive import didn’t stop at just controlling erosion, it wanted to do more, like take over back lots and roadside terrain; gas stations and your neighborhood Stuckey's. (A lot of the pecan log convenient stores have gone missing: Haven't you wondered why?)

The near perfect growing conditions in the South and lack of any natural predators—actually livestock and groundhogs eat it but they cannot consume it fast enough—have now placed it at the top of the list of plants to eradicate. Kudzu has been designated as a pest weed by the Department of Agriculture since 1953, but that has hardly slowed it down.

- Photo taken along a roadside. Is that a Stuckey's under there?

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