1930 - Annual Convention Report

              78 A L B E R T A W O M E N ' S I N S T I T U T ES
the gentle slope to the road gate with its heavy gate- posts and its heavy iron
latch, the familiar click of which served to give notice of callers. From near
the house and reaching to the road gate, a distance of perhaps 200 feet, this
driveway was lined on each side with Balm of Gileads, some of which were
over two feet in diameter, and the branches of these great trees spread
almost to meet over the track beneath. In the spring their early bursting
buds fairly filled the air with a characteristic perfume, and the buds were
soon followed by woolly catkins and shiny green leaves; in the branches
appeared the first flock of blackbirds with their piercing calls, the first robin
w i t h his i n i t i a l confirmation of spring, and once that rare bird, the glorious
Cock of the Woods, gave the Balms a thorough inspection, but failed to
locate.
Where the hill dropped immediately from the house, the slope was decor­ated
with four oval flower beds that were raised and enclosed by turf borders.
These were filled largely with perennials, the local names of which might
have given a botanist some shock, but this did not prevent our enjoyment of
beauty and perfume, and as a matter of fact we would not have known what
to do with a botanist, if we had encountered one running loose. Some of the
perennials I may venture to name: Iris, although we had another name for
them; Live- for- ever, a plant that almost justified its name; Sweet W i l l i a m,
Spotted Tiger L i l y , and of course the Orange L i l y that burst into bloom con­veniently
on or about the twelfth day of July. In the spaces between these
perennials we planted each spring seeds of Nasturtium, Candytuft, Marigold
and Poppy. There were only two flowering shrubs on the place, but these
were large and impressive— a great clump of June Roses that was still prom­inent
when I last visited the place, and two towering groups of Lilacs,[_ the
blooms of which came along so generously, that we somehow grew to min­imize
the blessing of having them.
P a r a l l e l to the row of Balms on the right, and about fifty feet from them,
stretched a line of immense old plum trees, that were gnarled and twisted,
and so spiky that a fellow just could not climb them. One forgot the crotch­ety
construction of these trees on two occasions each summer— when they
produced their wealth of bloom in the spring, and when the fruit was ripe
in early autumn. Truth to tell there were only three of those trees that bore
fruit satisfactory to the taste of even a growing boy. Part of the remainder
always had something wrong with them at time of maturity; some ripened,
as far as color went at least, but remained hard, and appeared to enjoy the
preference of certain worms; we did not know which was cause and which
was effect, so the pigs got these plums. Others performed properly as to
ripening, but they were so acrid that they made even the pigs squeal.
To the left of the driveway was the " big orchard," that held six rows of
apple trees, about eight trees to each . row. Not one of those trees would
today be regarded as useful for anything but the production of rootsticks for
grafting, but in that capacity they would be valuable to the horticulturist,
because of their extreme hardiness. They all had been planted before I was
born, and indeed some of them must have been flourishing for at least thirty
years ' before they registered on my consciousness. They had grown from
seeds planted by my grandmother, seeds that probably came from Devonshire,
and because they were seedlings, there were no two alike as to fruit, v a r y i ng
in size, color and flavour. In taste some would be spicy, many would be flat,
some were sour, and two or three were positively bitter. Only a few showed
an inclination to color, and these as a rule possessed the most attractive
flavour; practically all were decidedly firm when harvested and they were,
therefore, sure keepers; some acquired a much finer flavour during the winter,
unless it was that our taste became less discriminating, while others showed