GARDENING 173 



presenting her bill to the gophers ; they do not 

 merely pilfer the grain, but in filling their sub- 

 terranean granaries with winter's keep they rob 

 crops by the acre. The Government is now in 

 hot pursuit, armed with a package of " kill- 'em- 

 quick " and the sharp sword of the righteous wrath 

 of the farmers. Yet the dying cry of the gopher is 

 not a pleasant sound to carry in one's heart, and one 

 always hopes that the earliest specimens of the 

 species did not make that attitude of prayer their 

 very own in vain. 



But, alas, the altar, so truly worthy of the thank- 

 offering of sweet idleness, was a full half-mile 

 from the kitchen in which it was my daily task to 

 prepare the food of to-day, and the green sitting- 

 room in which it was my daily duty to take thought 

 for the food of to-morrow, and as one new chore 

 after another encroached on my hours of pleasure I 

 resolved to raise an altar to dolce far niente at my 

 door. Beautiful as were the flowers of the prairie, 

 in the vicinity of the cottage none had planted 

 flowers. It had something attractive in the way of 

 form, but the veranda and the colour of the turf 

 were marred by all sorts and conditions of weed. 

 So I said there should be eight flower-beds around 

 my accommodating veranda, but in the end I 

 threw in the corners and so there were four big ones, 

 and at north, south, east, and west the turf still 

 clung to the veranda, affording the convenience of 

 a comparatively clear approach, and also dividing 

 the really arduous work of digging into sprints. 

 Roddy McMahon had initiated me in the Canadian 

 method of planting potatoes, but there was no 

 digging attached to that or any form of his agri- 



