AGRICULTURE The first stage in Lot 34 agriculture was to clear some land; the settlers arriving on June 8, 1770 would have barely time to get a harvestable crop in, given our short growing season. Trees were cut and used for shelter building, and scrub and brush were burned, with the risk of the disastrous runaway fires of this period. The first crop to go in was potatoes, planted in hills among the tree stumps. Seed grain was not forthcoming for the first two years, owing to supply difficulties with David Higgins at Three Rivers, and in any case plowing and harrowing to plant grain was impossible until stumping could be done; and David Lawson complained that he did not receive the promised draft animals, ... nor any implement of farming. One imagines that the settlers did not have much to eat that first winter besides salt fish, eels and smelts caught through the ice, and potatoes. Food was so scarce that on one occasion Robert Auld ... was compelled to dig up for food a part of his 'setts' which had been sprouting in the earth for weeks. (The Rev. S.G. Lawson in The Presbyterian, Oct. 25, 1877). And at this time the settlers used the large quills of eagles' feathers (eagles were apparently numerous then) to punch the eyes out of their seed potatoes; the eyes were planted and the rest of the potato eaten, (ibid.) The present writer, wishing to test this manoeuvre, and being fresh out of eagle feathers, used an apple corer to punch out eyes from seed potatoes; the eyes were started indoors in peat pots, and then planted outdoors, alongside regular sets, to act as controls. The plants from eyes were not as compact and sturdy as the controls, and the crop of tubers was not as heavy as that from regular sets, but it was a viable method of producing potatoes. About 200 acres were cleared on Farm during the first few years, and farm house and barns erected. Oxen were used as draft 38