Down North and Up Along 
truth is, wheat does not thrive as well as hay. 
Every effort was made to impress upon us the 
marvellous fertility of the soil — expressed in 
terms of hay. They told us they cut three 
tons to the acre. But they might as well have 
said thirty, such was our ignorance concerning 
Nova Scotia's favourite crop, and we neither 
looked nor were the least astonished. Our 
indifference troubled them, and from the ques- 
tions they asked we suspect they feared we 
knew of a place in " America " where more 
was cut. 
Before we left the Cornwallis Valley, the 
mists of our ignorance had been penetrated by 
the light of knowledge. In spite of ourselves 
we finally acquired a certain reverence for hay 
and a proper appreciation of three tons to the 
acre. M. was quickly reconciled to it because 
the stacks were so pretty, and the shorn 
meadow-land was lovely in the autumn land- 
scape. It is not probable the people them- 
selves consume hay ; but what do they do with 
it ? For there are no flocks or herds to be 
seen. And what else can they consume, when 
their broad and fertile lands are broad and 
fertile hay-fields ? Hay and apples ! 
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