I have just come back now with the closing in of autumn--to the city. I
have hung up my hoe in my study; my spade is put away behind the piano.
I have with me seven pounds of Paris Green that I had over. Anybody who
wants it may have it. I didn't like to bury it for fear of its poisoning
the ground. I didn't like to throw it away for fear of its destroying
cattle. I was afraid to leave it in my summer place for fear that it
might poison the tramps who generally break in in November. I have it
with me now. I move it from room to room, as I hate to turn my back upon
it. Anybody who wants it, I repeat, can have it.

I should like also to give away, either to the Red Cross or to anything
else, ten packets of radish seed (the early curled variety, I think),
fifteen packets of cucumber seed (the long succulent variety, I
believe it says), and twenty packets of onion seed (the Yellow Danvers,
distinguished, I understand, for its edible flavour and its nutritious
properties). It is not likely that I shall ever, on this side of the
grave, plant onion seed again. All these things I have with me. My
vegetables are to come after me by freight. They are booked from Simcoe
County to Montreal; at present they are, I believe, passing through
Schenectady. But they will arrive later all right. They were seen going
through Detroit last week, moving west. It is the first time that I
ever sent anything by freight anywhere. I never understood before the
wonderful organization of the railroads. But they tell me that there is
a bad congestion of freight down South this month. If my vegetables get
tangled up in that there is no telling when they will arrive.

In other words, I am one of the legion of men--quiet, determined,
resolute men--who went out last spring to plant the land, and who are
now back.

With me--and I am sure that I speak for all the others as well--it was
not a question of mere pleasure; it was no love of gardening for its
own sake that inspired us. It was a plain national duty. What we said to
ourselves was: "This war has got to stop. The men in the trenches thus
far have failed to stop it. Now let _us_ try. The whole thing," we
argued, "is a plain matter of food production."

"If we raise enough food the Germans are bound to starve. Very good. Let
us kill them."

I suppose there was never a more grimly determined set of men went out
from the cities than those who went out last May, as I did, to conquer
the food problem