FullReads

The second year I made a rise–out of ‘spuds’, of all the things in the world. It was Mary’s idea. Down at the lower end of our selection–Mary called it ‘the run’–was a shallow watercourse called Snake’s Creek, dry most of the year, except for a muddy water-hole or two; and, just above the junction, where it ran into Lahey’s Creek, was a low piece of good black-soil flat, on our side–about three acres. The flat was fairly clear when I came to the selection–save for a few logs that had been washed up there in some big ‘old man’ flood, way back in black-fellows’ times; and one day, when I had a spell at home, I got the horses and trace-chains and dragged the logs together–those that wouldn’t split for fencing timber–and burnt them off. I had a notion to get the flat ploughed and make a lucern-paddock of it. There was a good water-hole, under a clump of she-oak in the bend, and Mary used to take her stools and tubs and boiler down there in the spring-cart in hot weather, and wash the clothes under the shade of the trees–it was cooler, and saved carrying water to the house. And one evening after she’d done the washing she said to me–

‘Look here, Joe; the farmers out here never seem to get a new idea: they don’t seem to me ever to try and find out beforehand what the market is going to be like–they just go on farming the same old way and putting in the same old crops year after year. They sow wheat, and, if it comes on anything like the thing, they reap and thresh it; if it doesn’t, they mow it for hay–and some of ’em don’t have the brains to do that in time. Now, I was looking at that bit of flat you cleared, and it struck me that it wouldn’t be a half bad idea to get a bag of seed-potatoes, and have the land ploughed–old Corny George would do it cheap–and get them put in at once. Potatoes have been dear all round for the last couple of years.’

I told her she was talking nonsense, that the ground was no good for potatoes, and the whole district was too dry. ‘Everybody I know has tried it, one time or another, and made nothing of it,’ I said.

‘All the more reason why you should try it, Joe,’ said Mary. ‘Just try one crop. It might rain for weeks, and then you’ll be sorry you didn’t take my advice.’

‘But I tell you the ground is not potato-ground,’ I said.

‘How do you know? You haven’t sown any there yet.’

‘But I’ve turned up the surface and looked at it. It’s not rich enough, and too dry, I tell you. You need swampy, boggy ground for potatoes. Do you think I don’t know land when I see it?’

‘But you haven’t TRIED to grow potatoes there yet, Joe. How do you know—-‘

I didn’t listen to any more. Mary was obstinate when she got an idea into her head. It was no use arguing with her. All the time I’d be talking she’d just knit her forehead and go on thinking straight ahead, on the track she’d started,–just as if I wasn’t there,–and it used to make me mad. She’d keep driving at me till I took her advice or lost my temper,–I did both at the same time, mostly.

I took my pipe and went out to smoke and cool down.

A couple of days after the potato breeze, I started with the team down to Cudgeegong for a load of fencing-wire I had to bring out; and after I’d kissed Mary good-bye, she said–

‘Look here, Joe, if you bring out a bag of seed-potatoes, James and I will slice them, and old Corny George down the creek would bring his plough up in the dray and plough the ground for very little. We could put the potatoes in ourselves if the ground were only ploughed.’