he intends to go in for flax--for fiber and not for
seed--and as our land should produce two tons of the finest flax-straw
to the acre and as the Belgian and Irish product is now worth over four
hundred dollars a ton, he told me to sit down and figure out what four
hundred acres would produce, with even a two-third crop.

The Canadian farmer of the West, he went on to explain, mostly grew flax
for the seed alone, burning up over a million tons of straw every year,
just to get it out of the way, the same as he does with his wheat-straw.
But all that will soon be changed. Only last week Dinky-Dunk wrote to
the Department of Agriculture for information about _courtai_
fiber--that's the kind used for point-lace and is worth a dollar a
pound--for my lord feels convinced his soil and climatic conditions are
especially suited for certain of the finer varieties. He even admitted
that flax would be better on his land at the present time, as it would
release certain of the natural fertilizers which sometimes leave the
virgin soil too rich for wheat. But what most impressed me about
Dinky-Dunk's talk was his absolute and unshaken faith in this West of
ours, once it wakes up to its opportunities. It's a stored-up granary of
wealth, he declares, and all we've done so far is to nibble along the
leaks in the floor-cracks!

_Saturday the Twenty-first_

To-day is Dinky-Dunk's birthday. He's always thought, of course, that
I'm a pauper, and never dreamed of my poor little residuary nest-egg.
I'd ordered a box of Okanagan Valley apples, and a gramophone and a
dozen opera records, and a brier-wood pipe and two pounds of English
"Honey-Dew," and a smoking-jacket, and some new ties and socks and
shirts, and a brand new Stetson, for Dinky-Dunk's old hat is almost a
rag-bag. And I ordered half a dozen of the newer novels and a set of
Herbert Spencer which I heard him say he wanted, and a sepia print of
the _Mona Lisa_ (which my lord says I look like when I'm planning
trouble) and a felt mattress and a set of bed-springs (so good-by, old
sway-backed friend whose humps have bruised me in body and spirit this
many a night!) and a dozen big oranges and three dozen little candles
for the birthday cake. And then I was cleaned out--every blessed cent
gone! But Percy (we have, you see, been unable to escape that name)
ordered a box of cigars and a pair of quilted house-slippers, so it was
a pretty formidable array.

I, accordingly, had Ol