COCKLE BURR, THE ROUGH-NECK 131 



stalks. "Here comes our friend now. What he will 

 do to you will be worth seeing." 



Just at this time Farmer Good and some of the 

 men from the State University came down this par- 

 ticular row, inspecting the corn of this highly spe- 

 cialized breeding experiment, and as they came to 

 Cockle Burr, Farmer Good reached down and pulled 

 him out by the roots. He took out his knife, then, 

 taking the old seed pod on the root of the plant, he 

 cut it in halves. 



"This is a first-year plant," he said, "for, as you 

 see, but one seed has germinated. The other would 

 germinate next year, but we pull these fellows before 

 the new seed pods form and we have to do it every 

 year. There is a fellow living a short distance away 

 from here, by the name of Farmer Careless, who 

 acts as a source of infection for this entire commu- 

 nity, as far as weeds of all kinds are concerned. The 

 foxes, rabbits, and other animals carry these burrs, 

 while the wind blows the other seeds all over the 

 country, and so long as this old fellow farms the 

 way he does, the entire country will have to con- 

 tend with this infection. His farming methods are 

 the same as his grandfather's. He refuses to join 

 the Farm Bureau or any agricultural associations, 

 and is a real menace to the better agriculture. 



