"When it was decided to develop some of the wild meadows and some spruce woodland into gardens the first discouragement encountered, and actually the only one, was the total absence of any good natural soil. Probing everywhere revealed nothing but six inches of the poorest stuff and a sub-soil of forbidding asphalt-like clay. On the farms, however, there was good sand and rich peat aplenty. Time and patience were largely drawn upon to transfer and mix thoroughly these two ingredients and bring up gravel from the beaches to add to them. Leaf mould presented more of a difficulty, for there were not sufficient deciduous trees in our woods to supply all that has been required, but that too has been overcome by resorting to a system of barter - salmon from the Metis river being exchanged for leaves from a neighbour's grove." Elsie Reford, "Lilies at Estevan Lodge, Grand Métis, Province of Quebec, Canada", 1939