LEVELLAND, Texas — The Texas cotton forecast fell again this month. Clyde “Straight Row” Mercer took the news to his banker, along with a tumbleweed he’d pulled from the steps of his cotton picker. The tumbleweed had reached the size of a desk chair without irrigation, machinery or a preseason consultation. Clyde wanted it looked at as an example of the farm’s ability to adapt.
The banker asked for a dependable source of demand. Clyde said the county had already demonstrated an exceptional capacity to produce supply. His wife Ellen, who had brought the farm books, put the tumbleweed outside. The branch manager walked past and offered to carry it to the dumpster. Clyde called that his first verbal offer.
The Texas Cotton Forecast Lands in a Levelland Kitchen
The fall forecast comes during a disappointing Southern Plains harvest, as reported by Texas Farm Bureau’s November 13 crop report. Estimates change as more fields come off. What a farm actually has to work with is the number of acres it picked, what came through the gin, the quality it received and the terms on which it can sell. Clyde said he understood all that and would appreciate any further changes arriving before he made up his mind about himself.
At the gin, a neighbor mentioned a decent field on the other side of the county. Clyde congratulated him and refrained from asking precisely what the field had done to deserve it. He had been out with the same sun and wind and had several private theories about what each of them owed him.
The Lender Wants a Budget for the New Crop
Ellen separated the actual gin information from the optimistic preharvest budget, a bookkeeping move Clyde compared to putting the before-and-after pictures in different envelopes. She suggested that anyone reworking a crop budget start with the realized yield and known contract prices, then update ginning, hauling and remaining debt payments. If a payment needs to be rescheduled, make the call while there is time to discuss the options. They made the call together, so Clyde wouldn’t accidentally offer the banker a truckload of tumbleweeds as a down payment.
The banker gave the side-business proposal twelve minutes, which Clyde considered generous for a crop with zero traceable employees. They discussed the wedding market. Ellen knew a woman who bought decorative tumbleweeds and had once paid real money for a wagon wheel. The trouble, she pointed out, was that the woman only needed one tumbleweed and could probably catch it in her driveway by Thursday.
Clyde put the weed back in his pickup bed and drove it home. Four miles out of town it escaped through a gap at the tailgate and rolled into another man’s pasture. At supper he told Ellen the first shipment was out and they could expect payment any day. She asked whether he had a bill of lading. Clyde said he had an understanding with the wind.
The tumbleweed was carried on the books at cost. Even the wind declined to sign for it.
Last Updated on November 15, 2026 by Alan Nafzger