Page:The New Arcadia (Tucker).djvu/92

82 proposed to haul the steamers through the canals by electric power supplied by an overhead line in course of erection.

After lunch one Saturday afternoon Travers set forth in his dog-cart to inspect the works while operations were suspended owing to the weekly half-holiday. As he passed down the main avenue the scene that presented itself was an animated one. All hands were busy at home before the football match of the day began. Some forming paths, others setting up rustic sheds and bowers, turning the generous waters to the roots of melons and "Turk's-heads," that spread like vegetable octopi over every available space, between giant rows of Pandrosa tomatoes, clumps of arrowroot, and lines of many-hued herbs. Another man was extending the shelter that protected a valuable and flourishing crop of mushrooms. Everything betokened special culture and scientific treatment that spoke volumes, for the lectures delivered each night by the resident experts.

Potatoes, fodder, wheat, &c., were grown by the hundred acres on the common land, while the individual settlers were encouraged to apply their long spare hours at home to the raising of the products that experts indicated as most profitable.

About verandahs, over rustic archways, bowers of dolichos and impomoea had already found footing, to be swept away, like other vigorous make-shifts, when more worthy growths were ready to take their place.

Valuable prizes, to be competed for each year, had been offered for the best appointed home, most neatly kept garden, for wisest application of land, greatest progress and quickest returns. The agricultural, horticultural, and poultry show of the settlement, to be held in a few months, offered liberal inducement for all to