The coupon would then be honoured for a free ride to any destination in a large part of the West. Some excursionists returned reporting good employment; others were not as fortunate. The Examiner for September 4, 1908 reported Regina as being full of men waiting for work on the farms. Destitute, they were being fed by the city. The situation at Moose Jaw was no better, and a group of men had left that city to walk to Regina, seeking work along the way. At Belle Plain they had sold their clothes to buy food. The C.P.R. at Moose Jaw had offered them jobs in the machine shops, as strike-breakers, which work the men had refused.

The story of the silver fox industry in Prince Edward Island reads like a chapter from the Arabian Nights. The most successful breeder was Charles Dalton of Tignish who produced a strain of beautiful “royal black” animals, the skins of which were sold to the Imperial families of Russia for as much as $2,900. each. The industry expanded rapidly, and, during the twenties, Major Smallwood, Russel Clark, Stewart MacEachern, L. E. Jay, W. L. MacLeod, Milton Coffin, William MacKenzie, George Jay, Ches- ter Birt, J. D. Timmins and George MacKenzie were among those who established ranches in and around Mount Stewart. Some were fortunate enough to come upon foxes in the wild state. Such was the case of the McGuirk brothers of Dromore, who, in May of 1926, found and captured a lair of six red foxes. On the other hand, valuable foxes often escaped from the ranches. In such instances it was customary to contact Mr. Chester Birt of Pisquid who owned a “fox dog,” trained to track dowu runaway animals. He recaptured 65 foxes during his lifetime. The indus- try’s collapse was as meteoric as its rise. Over—production of skins, the changing whims of the world of fashion and the advent of the Great Depression reduced prices to the point that ranching was no longer pro— fitable.

Potatoes, that perennial staple of Island agriculture, were at first grown and marketed almost exclusively as table stock. After 1918, how- ever, the increased acreages made possible through the introduction of chemical fertilizers, the Province’s high reputation as a disease~free area for seed potatoes and its high standards of requirement for certification gradually transformed the Island into the principal certified seed producing area in Canada. A great boon for potato growers in the vicinity of Mount Stewart was the construction, in 1926, of the large frost-proof warehouse at Douglas Station. Potato growers, however, suffered heavy losses dur- ing the Great Depression when prices fell to the all—time low of .8c a bushel. A contributing factor was the embargo which Great Britian placed on Canadian potatoes out of fear of the Colorado .Beetle or potato bug. In spite of this and other setbacks the growers persevered, and Mount Stewart men won distinction in potato-growing circles. To cite some cases, in 1963, a three—acre plot of Green Mountains produced the Atlantic Winter Fair grand championship sample for Levi Jay of Pisquid. In the following year, Chester M. Birt of the same locality won the grand championship for seed at the same exhibition. His winning sample was a group of Keswicks.

Another industry related to argiculture for which Mount Stewart is justly famous is the growing of blueberries. As early as 1907 the village was the heaviest shipping place for that product on the Island, and, two years later, Mr. Russell Clark, finding it a profitable business, had erected a blueberry canning factory. The plant, located on the south- ern side of Railway Street west of the house presently owned by Oliver

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