THE BOLL-WEEVIL 21 



All this time the entomologists had been hard at 

 work and had learned that the weevils cannot go 

 into winter quarters until driven by the cool weather. 

 They told the people about it ; and said : " No army 

 can fight unless the soldiers have their stomachs 

 full. You must pick fast and as far as you can, 

 destroy the cotton-stalks about two weeks before 

 the first killing frost. If you can, plow them under. 

 This will force the weevils to starve before they can 

 go into winter quarters, for they must have cotton 

 to feed on until that time." Many people who had 

 been waiting for the entomologists and demonstra- 

 tors to find some spray to kill the weevils saw that 

 the many different kinds of sprays that had been 

 tried were failures. One morning in June a num- 

 ber of those people were sitting in front of Miller's 

 store talking about the hard times. 



"If these entomologists and demonstrators would 

 only find some simple spray that we could use, then 

 we could fight the weevils," they said. 



Just then Jim Conley, one of the best farmers of 

 that section, came along and heard what they said. 



"I hope they will never find a spray," he said. 



"What ! ! !" those people roared. "What do you 

 mean?" 



"If somebody should find such spray, you would 

 depend on it instead of good farming. You would 

 just keep on growing nothing but cotton and wear 



