July, 1920 
111 
Slower (Brower 
MRS. AUSTIN’S TALKS | 
: | Hr men expressly for The Floiver Grower.] 
A Gladiolus Farm in 
Oregon. 
TOU CAN PHONE 
Y us from Portland. 
1 We are reached 
through the Gresh- 
am Exchange, 343. 
“ You must plan to spend 
several days in Portland to 
see the things worth seeing 
one hundred and forty miles 
distant.” 
“ But where is Mt. Hood 
and will we see it on this 
trip ?” 
“ Yes, very soon now.” 
“ Are they always as com- 
pletely covered with snow 
as now ?” 
“ Well, they sometimes be- 
come a little spotted when 
we want you to come out to Gladiolus 
Farm. Trains leave First and Alder 
streets at 8:45 A. M., 12:45 P. M. and 
3:45 P. M. One of the earlier trains 
would be the nicest, then you could 
stay over night with us, returning to 
Portland late the next evening. 
“ Buy tickets to Mayberry. I will 
meet you there with my Ford.” 
We were in the interurban station in 
Portland and I was reading a portion 
of a letter from W. L. Crissey of Bor- 
ing, Oregon, which we had received 
just before leaving San Francisco. 
“Yes, they’re at home,” said my se- 
date husband coming out of the tele- 
phone booth with his grave, gray eyes 
alight, “ and,” looking at his watch, 
“ the car is due in about 15 minutes.” 
“ This postscript, ‘ Wear the oldest 
clothes you’ve got with you,’ sounds 
good, doesn’t it ? I believe that means 
a trip in the forest, don’t you ?” 
“ Perhaps,” and pulling a newspaper 
from his pocket he buried himself in its 
columns. 
I was on tiptoe with expectation and 
went to the front of the waiting room 
where I could watch for the car better, 
wondering how one could calmly read 
a paper under such circumstances. 
A woman, slightly gray, occupied 
the seat nearest the door. She seemed 
so alert and businesslike that she at- 
tracted me, and her frequent glances 
in the direction of the car-stop caused 
me to think that she might be waiting 
for the same car we were. I sat down 
beside her and we fell into easy con- 
versation. She had been spending a 
week with her daughter in the city and 
was now going home. 
“ We are bound for Mayberry,” I 
ventured. 
“That’s where I get off,” she re- 
plied quickly. “ Have • you friends 
there ?” 
“ Yes, a Gladiolus grower by the 
name of Crissey, W. L. Crissey. Are 
you acquainted with him ?” 
“ Why, yes, I ought to know him,” 
then with dainty dignity and sweet 
pride, she added, “ He’s my son.” 
After riding a few miles we came in 
sight, on our left, of a mountain of 
pyramidal form and covered with 
snow, glistening and sparkling in the 
sunlight. We thought that must be 
Mt. Hood and inquired of Mrs. Crissey 
who sat in the seat ahead. 
“Oh no, that’s Mt. St. Helen. You 
wouldn’t think it ninety miles away, 
would you, and over there, looking as 
if only a little beyond, is Mt. Adams 
but the peaks are usually very white. 
There! You can see Mt. Hood now, 
but there are a few clouds around the 
peak. That is sixty miles from here.” 
“ And none of them seem more than 
ten or twenty at the farthest.” 
The car slowed down at a small 
town and a wide awake appearing 
young man came in. “ Well, how are 
you, mother, and here are the Austins? 
Have you people become acquainted ? 
No, this is not Mayberry. 1 came on 
seven miles to give you a little auto 
ride through some of our country.” 
An enjoyable trip it surely was, but 
our attention was divided between 
beauty of the scenery and the persist- 
ency with which a man driving a truck 
held to the middle of the road. We 
said a few unkind things about him 
but quickly forgave him, at least Mr. 
Crissey did, when he stopped at the 
farm, proving to be a new bulb custo- 
mer, and buying heavily. 
When we drove in at the gate it 
seemed to me that we were at the 
road’s end, but a glance at the right 
showed a sharp hairpin curve in steep 
descent. Mother Crissey vanished into 
a cottage near the gateway to join her 
husband, while from a second cottage, 
a short distance farther on, Mrs. W. L. 
Crissey came to greet us while her 
mother waited in the doorway. Rustic- 
ally beautiful indeed were those cot- 
tages smothered in English Ivy with 
background of primaeval timber. Two 
groves of patriarchal firs, many 200 to 
250 feet in height. 
“They must be very old,” I remarked. 
“They are. That especially tall one 
is estimated to be over 500 years. It 
was a very respectable tree when Co- 
lumbus discovered America.” 
“ How did you find this wonderful 
place?” and as we walked along he 
told us, while Mrs. Crissey pointed out 
new beauty of scene or plantings, for 
the wild beauty has been preserved 
and enhanced by liberal planting of 
native material. 
“ As an office man engaged in ad- 
vertising work, I came upon my farm 
one Sunday when horseback riding, 
and was so impressed with its unique 
scenic location that I bought the place 
the next day, though I had not the 
slightest idea of buying anything and 
had to rustle for the necessary funds 
after I had made the purchase. ‘Gladi- 
olus Farm,’ as I named it, and I have 
the name copyrighted, is a natural 
table land of forty acres with a steep 
bluff on three sides to the Sandy River 
two hundred and fifty feet below. This 
river is fifty miles in length, its source 
in the glaciers of Mt. Hood and it falls 
five thousand feet in the fifty miles with 
a roar like ocean surf. At the base of 
the bluff is an electric railway station, 
and in front of the house a fine road 
directly to Portland twenty-five miles 
distant.” 
Here Mrs. Crissey called our atten- 
tion to some of the Laburnum trees 
over one hundred of these having been 
naturalized in the woods. These with 
drooping racemes of flowers like yel- 
low wistaria are peculiarly beautiful in 
contrast with glossy evergreen foliage 
of the English Laurel, also the brillant 
leaves of the Oregon Grape another 
evergreen and growing almost every- 
where. 
There were plantings of the Wild 
Currant, which in Oregon, is a beauti- 
ful cherry-red flower, and the wild 
Philadelphus — the Mock Orange of east- 
ern gardens— in many numbers. The 
wild Spirea Arifolia is a noble native 
shrub and Hazelnut bushes fifteen feet 
high seemed to be the rule. 
Gladiolus — Rouge Torch in pale green bowl, 
showing good arrangement and har- 
mony of color. 
A picturesque winding “trail” to 
the railroad station shows one spot a 
solid bank of Maidenhair Fern cover- 
ing a couple of hundred square feet. 
Huge Ferns like the Boston are native 
everywhere and fascinating little mosses 
and many wild flowers, including Fox- 
glove, Ginger Root, wild Larkspur and 
Trilliums. The bluff near the house is 
a mass of Scotch Broom, a perfect blaze 
of yellow through the spring and a 
cheerful green throughout the winter. 
Blooming with it is lavender Iris in 
lovely contrast, and nearby against the 
green background of the Broom is an- 
other planting promising much. This 
is Anchusa Italica (Dropmore) in com- 
bination with Gypsophila Paniculata, 
with liberal sprinkling of soft pink 
Poppies— intense blue, filmy white and 
pale pink. For fall there are clumps 
of the lovely Japanese Anemone in 
silvery pink. 
Much attention has been paid to 
opening up vistas from the farm, 
through the judicious cutting of trees 
