THE BOLL-WEEVIL 11 



"What!" his father retorted, "did you ever see 

 anything that could stump me, heh?" 



"I am afraid I have ; I think I saw it this morn- 

 ing, and it is the little boll-weevil. If you know how 

 to get us out of this trouble, then I am willing to 

 believe that there is nothing on earth that can 

 stump you." 



"We will see about it," Mr. Hentsel answered 

 with importance. 



It is true that Mr. Hentsel was a bright man and 

 a good farmer and always seemed to find some way 

 to get over trouble, so when he came to the cotton 

 field after dinner several of the neighbors saw him 

 and came also. After he had looked at the cotton 

 carefully, he turned to the other men and said, "Let 

 me tell you something." Everybody listened, think- 

 ing that a bright idea had occurred to him. "This 

 is terrible," he said, and walked home. 



"We have known that for several days, haven't 

 we?" George Carnes said. "We may as well go 

 back to our plows." 



And so it was with the best farmers. They saw 

 that, in spite of anything they said or tried to do, 

 the weevils became more and more destructive. 

 Year after year they became more numerous and 

 kept on spreading over more plantations. In 1900 

 they had spread over the greater portion of east 

 Texas and had entered Louisiana. Cotton and his 



