The origin or rough timeframe for the quip about pouring piss out of a boot?

Question

Okay: The line is characterizing someone as being so dumb that they could not pour piss out of a boot -- even if the instructions were written on the heel.
Just a tremendously clever line and if it does not have the impact today that it did when it was new it's because you've heard it already.
I have seen it attributed to LBJ and that would be something but it is more likely that it is an old Texas saying. One problem is, based on censorship laws, it could not have been in a movie and perhaps not in a book much before LBJ was born in 1908.
But it has a modern feel. Here's why: Prior to the advent of railroads, most goods were made locally -- towns were largely self-sufficient and it is doubtful anything you made or purchased had instructions written on it. Sears catalog might have had such things but that was late 19th century.
So I suspect we will not be able to find any indication that the saying was coined prior to the 20th century. If LBJ had made that up, would he not have made sure to let everyone know this? I sure would.
Now, I could believe that the first part was used -- just someone saying, why, that person couldn't pour piss out of a boot. The refinement could have been added maybe as late as the 1960s -- besides the argument about instructions being written on items, it just feels "edgy."

JEL · Accepted Answer

Informants for the 1965-70 DARE Survey contributed folk saying
variants "about a person who seems to you very stupid" (paywalled: DARE, see
JJ15a and b) in response to the lead-ins "He hasn't sense enough to
_________" and "He doesn't know _________."
Many variants were contributed. In response to the "He hasn't sense enough
to" query, one from a Texas informant was

Pour piss out of a boot with the directions printed on the heel.

For the same lead-in, another Texas informant contributed

Pour piss out of a boot if the directions were written on the heel and
the toes cut out.

A third informant, from Oklahoma, contributed

Pour piss out of a boot, and if he did, he’d step in it.

In response to the "He doesn't know" query, a Georgia informant
contributed

How to pour piss out of a boot with directions written on the heel.

The earliest variant in DARE (paywalled entry) for the generalized
"pour piss out of a boot, v phr" is quoted from a 1931 PMLA
(45.1305):

He couldn’t pour water outn a boot an’ the directions on the heel.

It wasn't difficult to turn up a "heel directions" variant in a story
from 1921:

…they don't know enough to pour sand out of a boot if they had
the directions printed on the heel.
From "Fiddler's Hatch" in Wayside Tales and Cartoons Magazine, by F.C.
Robertson.

And an unembellished variant as early as 1901:

"Jud," he said, "you ain't got sense enough to pour rain-water out of a
boot."
Dwellers in the Hills, Melville Davisson Post.

Although evidence in print was not readily found, it would be reasonable
to suppose that both the unembellished and the embellished variants might
have been established in local and regional speech before 1900.

The origin or rough timeframe for the quip about pouring piss out of a boot?

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