208 The French in Prince Edward Island 
     
    
   
   
    
     axe and fire levelled the forest, the settlers gradually 
     
     got the upper hand. 
     
    

    
     In the intervals between the raids of field mice the 
     
     Acadians had to contend against grasshoppers, rust, 
     
     and “scald.” These plagues were sometimes local, 
     
     sometimes general in their effects, but among them 
     
     they managed to keep the settlers in a state of want 
     
     and to provide the officials at Ile Royale with a plau- 
     
     sible explanation of the heavy costs of colonial enter- 
     
     prise, although much that was charged to relief in 
     
     Isle Saint Jean apparently never reached the suffer- 
     
     ing inhabitants, finding its way rather mto the 
     
     pockets of the corrupt officers. 
     
    

    
     Though turnips and cabbage are occasionally 
     
     mentioned in contemporary correspondence, the Aca- 
     
     dians do not seem to have grown the potato in Prince 
     
     Edward Island. Wheat and peas were the usual crop 
     
     but oats, barley, and rye were also grown. Pea-soup, 
     
     bread, and molasses were the staple food, and apart 
     
     from pork, mutton, and fowl, only salted beef seems 
     
     to have been used. This was due to the fact that all 
     
     cattle were carefully treasured in the later years of 
     
     the colony for the use of Louisburg. Every family 
     
     raised one or more pigs for home consumption. These 
     
     were easily fed, particularly on the upland farms, 
     
     where they roamed through the woods in summer and 
     
     fattened on beechnuts in autumn. Sheep, too, found 
     
     food among the weeds and the tender leaves of the 
     
     smaller shrubs as well as on the wild grasses of both 
     
     the uplands and the marshes. For the more venture- 
     
     some habitans there was food in the woods, in the air,