During the summer every patch of ground, even road-edgings, was cultivated. Vacant fields were divided into small patches and given to the poor to till and plant; potatoes especially were grown, for during the preceding winter there had been a great dearth of this mainstay of the poorer classes. Now, however, it was not only the indigent who feared starvation. The well-to-do and even the rich anticipated being deprived not only of the better edibles to which they were accustomed, but even of necessities. Consequently flower-beds and lawns of private estates were tilled to raise potatoes, beans, sprouts, etc. Our own croquet-ground was converted into a potato-patch; the rose-garden produced cabbages, onions, and beets, while the tennis-court netting served to support climbing beans! But ill-fortune made that summer, in regard to weather, the worst Belgium could remember for many years, as the winter before had been one of the most severe. Continual rain destroyed a large proportion of the potatoes and greatly injured other crops. It was pitiable to see farmers who, deprived of their horses,—for the Germans had taken all,—had tilled their fields, foot by foot, with spades (the more fortunate with slow and stubborn oxen), and had laboured from dawn till dark to make them flourish, gazing in wide-eyed despair upon acres of rain-blackened rye or blight-ruined potatoes. As the Germans claimed a large percentage of all produce, this misfortune raised the price of ordinary vegetables, poor as they were, so high that only the rich could afford them. The poor were obliged to subsist on the two potatoes a day per head which—until their stock was exhausted—the “National Alimentation Committee”[1] provided. [1] “Le Comité National,” Belgian organization for distributing food-stuffs provided by the American Commission for relief. Not far from us, on a narrow strip of grass-land bordering a wood, two poor women “whose husbands were fighting” had planted vegetables for their own use during the winter. They were mothers of several small children, but despite this care and their household duties, they were at work there at the first glimmer of day. They went home only at midday to procure the charity soup and warm it for their children, then returned to labour until dark. It seemed impossible that anything could thrive in such a shadowed place, but a weak crop of potatoes, cabbages, and beans presently appeared, only to be partly destroyed by rain, while much of what survived was stolen later by those who had no land to cultivate.