GENERAL SURVEY 25 



Not that everything went smoothly ; far from it. 

 When the actual struggle began with uprooting and 

 deep digging, I had many a painful hour. I felt 

 much as Adam must have felt when he was driven 

 foot by foot out of the Original Garden. I crept 

 away before serried ranks of Spring onions. Cab- 

 bage in all its plebeian luxuriance marched coarsely, 

 triumphantly onward, and thrust me before it ; escha- 

 lots advanced in echelon ; potatoes turned my right 

 flank ; tomatoes scaled my walls ; Sharland led his 

 legions in person, and was prepared to die for them 

 in the last trench. So that smiling region was con- 

 verted into a utilitarian waste. Finally I threw up a 

 bank of Indian corn and refused to abandon another 

 yard. Then, while the enemy was busy perfecting 

 his formations, dark thoughts came to me of a counter- 

 attack. I dreamed of planting sun-flowers among the 

 Jerusalem artichokes, and mixing sweet peas with the 

 green ones. It would have been magnificent, but 

 not war. 



At present the limits are fixed, and, like Canute to 

 the sea, I have said to this green ocean of culinary 

 stuff, "Thus far and no farther." Probably the 

 result will be the same. Only yesterday I saw 

 Sharland looking thoughtfully at a sunny corner, as 

 the farmer regards his fattening porkers. I know 

 what is in his mind. I have seen him and my wife 

 in deep converse there. They spring apart guiltily 

 when I suddenly pop up from a patch of something. 

 But I am not deceived. 



There are, however, certain oases left in this desert 



