CLEARING AND PLANTING. 59 



quarter of a stick of dynamite and lit a fuse, retiring 

 to watch the result. 



In this way we slowly but surely subdued every 

 inch of that acre and a half. Then we planted the 

 ground with potatoes. By this time it was almost 

 too late for that; but I had resolved to risk it. The risk 

 was justified by the result. Off that 1^ acre we dug 

 in September sixty hundredweight of sound potatoes, 

 or " spuds," as the Canadian prefers to call them. 



As soon as the potatoes were planted, we turned 

 our energies to the preparation of half an acre or so 

 to receive two thousand tomato plants. These plants, 

 when they arrived, proved to be very different from 

 what we should have had sent to us for planting in 

 England, having been lifted directly from the seed- 

 boxes. This gave them a severe check. Yet 

 this was not the only trouble that fretted their 

 brief existence. Just as they were recovering from 

 the shift to the open ground, we noticed that 

 they were being eaten by some insect or other 

 enemy. We suspected slugs or caterpillars; but 

 of neither were we able to discover the slightest trace. 

 As a matter of fact, slugs cannot live in the dry 

 atmosphere of British Columbia. We were puzzled. 

 What could the enemy be ? It was obviously some- 

 thing outside the range of our ordinary English 

 experience. A day or two later the mystery was 

 solved for us by the local newspaper, which spoke 

 of the ravages of the " cutworm " among the cabbage 

 "patches" of Nelson. The cutworm! That was 

 our enemy beyond a doubt. Luckily I had a Govern- 

 ment pamphlet in the house, describing the creature 

 and its habits, and telling the ignorant how to feed 



