BY WENDY ELLIOTT

Kings County Register

Eric Davies marked his 94th birthday July 2, so 91-year-old Neil Price made a point of deferring to “old age” when the question of longevity arose.

Davies, who now lives with his daughter, Jill, and her husband in Wolfville; attributes his good health to fresh air and exercise.

"I worked for 50 years in horticulture, starting out in England."

His speciality with Agriculture Canada was potato breeding. Often, Davies would start 70,000 seedlings a year. He explored hundreds of varieties of eating potatoes, French fry potatoes and potatoes for chips. The Shepody, launched in 1980, was one of the success stories in trials at the Fredericton research centre. Today, the Shepody is the number two frozen French fry variety. It is grown around the world and accounts for 15 per cent of total Canadian potato production.

For his own taste, Davies likes a well cooked, mealy potato. At that point Price, a retired Baptist clergyman, pipes up: "You never had to worry about calories."

It's true. Davies regularly walks - with his walker - half way across the town to the Wolfville Memorial Library for reading material.

Doris MacKinnon, who celebrated her 95th birthday July 5, said she has no advice to offer on longevity.

"I kept busy," says the retired nurse.

A resident of the Wolfville Nursing Home, she can count two operations and a broken leg as previous health challenges, but then notes, "that's not bad for an old lady."

MacKinnon's brother, Dalton, a pharmacist in Wolfville, lived to 92. She says she can't understand why some members of her family didn't make it to an advanced age.

How old can you go?

• A Canadian born in 1960 can expect to live 20 years longer than a Canadian born in 1900.

• Birth rates have declined, so a growing proportion of the population is over 65. By the year 2031, approximately 20 per cent of Canada's population - one in five - will be seniors.

• People in Vancouver already enjoy warmer winters – now they can expect to live longer too, according to a Statistics Canada study. The report found the range of life expectancy varied greatly across Canada, with Vancouverites having an average life of 81.1 years. People living in the northern Ontario city of Sudbury have the shortest life, 76.7 years - about the same as those living in Ireland, Portugal or the U.S.