Personal introduction

  I just joined this group a few days ago and have already received and read
some 300 messages - I'm floored! It seems to be the custom to introduce
yourself at the first opportunity but its hard to make a lifetime come out
short. I am 86 now and beginning to feel like a senior. I have a BSA  in
Agri. option chemistry from the University of Guelph - class of '33. Since
those were the dirty thirties I caame back to the farm I had bought in 1930
and stayed with farming - cash crops apples and finally an iris nursery. It
was the largest specialist iris nursery in Canada when I sold it 27 years
ago to start to reduce the work load - I had 40 acres of apples then. My
iris experience started in the mid twenties helping my mother with her
garden and doing the diging and dividing of her 'Flags' It was in 1950, four
years after I married and was living on my fourth farm by then that I
discovered modern TBs when my wife brought home 3 rhizomes from a Mrs.
Marshall, a beekeeper at Hannon. We were thrilled and joined the AIS
(actually the Canadian Iris Society which was at that time the same thing as
AIS). The CIS was four years old then and barely alive. I beccame their
first Editor for many years and am still an Honorary Director for life and
attend most meetings. As our iris collection grew visitors wanted to buy and
so our sales nursery began. I didn't get far in hybridizing before I found
out I did not have the time to spare for it and decided to collect as many
species iris as would grow here. I soon had a larger collection than the
Royal Botanical Gardens (who are about ten miles from here on the opposide
side of Hamilton from me. I am on the 'mountain' - the Niagara Escarpment.
It only looks like a mountain - from the lower part of the city in the
glacial cut valley. In 1968 I was one of the four founders of SIGNA (The
Species Iris Group of North America)and its Editor and Pblisher until 1983.
I continued to publish it for several more years on my duplicator.
>
>   The orchard too is gone now - the land cleared and put back into corn
and soybeans by a neighbor who rents it. The large species bed in the field
is gone too - a year ago after the RBG and others took out anything they
wanted - and then I relented at the last moment and replanted what was left
in the vegetable garden. It too is now too large that I am alone as I lost
my wife 2 1/2 years ago and am still trying to tidy  up the odds and ends. I
bought this new IBM comp computer a few months ago  and am still deeply
involved in trying to figure how it all works. It's got plenty of power for
the Internet and a 17" monitor to make it easier for my one fair eye to see.
Only one ear works too. I really need a complete overhaul but will be around
for a few more years.

   In reading some of the last letters I downloaded to Aug. 29 I noted one
from Ruth N. Brunty re I chrysographes. I grew this species for many years
but lost it in the last move. It is a deep purple with gold flashes and very
showy. Grows about 18" high and not too robust here. It was named by Dykes
and comes from southern China and the northern highlands of Burma - at about
3,00 feet el. So a mild climate one but hardier than other species from the
same area. It likes damp meadow land or near swamp - so needs more water
than I gave it here in the rows with all the others. It would be nice if
Ruth and her fried would give one some idea of where she is located if she
wants advice on how to grow something. I suspect they live somewhere in the
U.S. and it would help if the state was known and perhaps the name of the
nearest large city. Personally I am familiar with the climate over most of
the U.S. and Canada but not too good about Europe. 
>From Bruce Richardson <brucer@networx.on.ca>
Near Hamilton, Ontario, Canada - the head of Lake Ontario.
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