Erath County had become one of the main apple producers in the state. In 1912 the area was struggling with San Jose scale, which was killing apple trees by the thousands. Various deadly insecticides were used that proved to be more lethal to the orchard workers than the scale. The scale was carried by the cedar (juniper) trees that were allowed to migrate away from places like the Chalk Mountains, where prairie fires were unable to damage them because the steep hillsides didn’t have enough grass to fuel a hot enough fire. For thousands of years the prairies were covered by waist high little bluestem, Indiangrass, and switchgrass, which burned hot enough to keep the grasslands bare of trees. When overgrazing removed the native grasses, the prairie fires were no longer hot enough to restrict cedar to the hills, thus carrying San Jose scale to the orchards. Stephenville Empire