pal
regulations.

Holland came near perishing; its dikes were undermined by the teredo,
and science is unable to discover the insect from which that mollusk
derives, just as science still remains ignorant of the metamorphoses of
the cochineal. The ergot, or spur, of rye is apparently a population of
insects where the genius of science has been able, so far, to discover
only one slight movement. Thus, while awaiting the harvest and gleaning,
fifty old women imitated the borer at the feet of five or six hundred
trees which were fated to become skeletons and to put forth no more
leaves in the spring. They were carefully chosen in the least accessible
places, so that the surrounding branches concealed them.

Who conveyed the secret information by which this was done? No one.
Courtecuisse happened to complain in Tonsard's tavern of having found a
tree wilting in his garden; it seemed he said, to have a disease, and he
suspected a borer; for he, Courtecuisse, knew what borers were, and if
they once circled a tree just below the ground, the tree died. Thereupon
he explained the process. The old women at once set to work at the
same destruction, with the mystery and cleverness of gnomes; and their
efforts were doubled by the rules now enforced by the mayor of Blangy
and necessarily followed by the mayors of the adjoining districts.

The great land-owners of the department applauded General de
Montcornet's course; and the prefect in his private drawing-room
declared that if, instead of living in Paris, other land-owners would
come and live on their estates and follow such a course together, a
solution of the difficulty could be obtained; for certain measures,
added the prefect, ought to be taken, and taken in concert, modified by
benefactions and by an enlightened philanthropy, such as every one could
see actuated in General Montcornet.

The general and his wife, assisted by the abbe, tried the effects of
such benevolence. They studied the subject, and endeavored to show by
incontestable results to those who pillaged them that more money
could be made by legitimate toil. They supplied flax and paid for the
spinning; the countess had the thread woven into linen suitable
for towels, aprons, and coarse napkins for kitchen use, and for
underclothing for the very poor. The general began improvements which
needed many laborers, and he employed none but those in the adjoining
districts. Sibilet was in charge of the works and the Ab