In Europe it is not uncommon for shells to be found in potato fields, but in New Zealand, where there was never any fighting during the First or Second World War, this rarely happens. The factory manager reports that the explosives service determined after an investigation that the eighty-year-old Mills hand grenade was harmless.
Like the potatoes, the hand grenade came from a farm in Matamata, New Zealand, not far from former army training camps. In the potato processing company’s 30-year existence, a grenade had never been found.