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Page Fourteen
There is a good deal of evidence to support the claim that Lance Cove was once a hive of industry. Several photographs taken from around the turn of the century show it to be a particularly beautiful and prosperous looking place. The houses were mostly large, well kept and set gracefully against the green slopes. Here and there tall populars and maples towered over the gable roofs. Apple, plum, cherry and dogwood made a delightful contrast against the bright spring greenery and,in the autumn, bore a rich harvest of fruit. Rose shrubs, lilac, wax-balls and chestnut ran around the border of the kitchen gardens. The rustic fences,where they were exposed to the sun, were draped with hops, which added its peculiar aroma to the fecund fragrance of the land's vitality. Everybody had a strawberry patch, a row or two of gooseberry and blackcurrent trees, and a few drills of "small seed" for the women to tend. Sweet william, sweet rocket, monkshood, helitrope and daffodils were favourite perennials that claimed a special place in the shelter of the stone walls and along the garden paths. The old folk took great pride in their surroundings, and it is little wonder that they lamented the change brought by the coming of the iron ore mines. It is ironic that the discovery of so much wealth should have marked not only the end of the quiet pastoral life of this little village also but the end of the real prosperity of its inhabitants. A few of the more stubborn individuals struggled on in dogged determination to preserve the tried and proven old ways, but the end was inevitable. Too many of their sons had laid down the paddle and the hoe for the pick and the shovel.
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