GIFTS OF THE SUN 103 



(or perhaps December) is the sheaf of April a sheaf of 

 stylosa, a miracle ! The tribe ill distinguishes between 

 root and bulb ; but whichever it is fed by, it stores sun 

 shine and expresses it in blossom. 



May we hope that the same influence was felt by 

 orchard tree and later bulbs ? Though the sorts vary 

 much (and who would compare a Bramley with a Cox ?), 

 our apples have what one may call a biennial tendency : 

 they bear well not more often than every other year. It 

 is not so in such paradises of the apple as the Okanagan 

 Valley, where the rainfall is small and the sunfall is large. 

 We can add water, but not sun ; and so a yearly crop of 

 ruddy fruit is produced. Jonathan has little share in the 

 shyness of Cox. This fickleness is, in part, due, of course, 

 to late frosts, to the necessary hostility of &quot; the three 

 Icemen &quot; at their May festival ; but, to speak roughly, 

 the richness of the sap is expressed in flower bud, and 

 its dilution in leaf bud. Last summer brewed the true 

 ichor ; and as we peregrinate our orchard and peer 

 closely and curiously at the still reluctant buds, we think 

 we see a satisfactory majority of the round and fat over 

 the long and narrow : blossom rather than growth is our 

 hope. 



The alchemy of the sun is as subtle as potent. If you 

 look into one of the loveliest gardens I know through 

 the arch of the window, you look through rose-coloured 

 spectacles : the panes are tinted with faint rose and lilac 

 tints. These colours are the measure of the years of sun 

 shine that the windows have admitted. The chemistry of 

 the glass has been slowly altered by the ultra-violet rays of 

 the sun, till the panes have become patently subdued to 

 that they work in. Even so, perhaps, the sun influences 

 the chemistry of the sap that flows in bulk, or between 

 bark and trunk. At the sun s behest it creates green leaf 



