Sweet Peas. 71 



flexed, of medium size, and of substance rarely good, as Firefly, 

 and Fairy Queen. 



III. The expanded form, with a truncate or somewhat auric- 

 ulate base, a broad, erect, rounded standard, large size, and fair 

 to good substance, as Gaiety and Ovid. 



IV. The hooded form, with an auriculate base, a hooded or 

 half-hooded standard, large size, and fair to good substance, as 

 Her Majesty and Emily Eckford. 



These classes, of course, are not divided by hard and fast lines, 

 but no variety in the experiment has yet been found which either 

 did not fall or tend to fall into one of them. 



We are now, perhaps, better prepared to understand Mr. Bur- 

 pee's preference in putting color last in the scale of points. It is 

 because form brings with it a number of other qualities, all of 

 which make a flower a good one or a poor one. There is, how- 

 ever, a deeper reason for this preference for form which it would 

 need an artist to explain. The eye is as much pleased with beauty 

 of form as with color. The mere outline of a blaze of light carries 

 with it a certain effect. Ruskin tells us that the old Gothic win- 

 dows in the best days of Gothic architecture owed their character- 

 istic beauty to the form of the aperture in which the stained glass 

 was placed and not to the decorations about that aperture. It 

 would seem to be the same with the sweet pea. Unless there is a 

 full blaze of light from a full rounded curve, the effect in part is 

 lost. Then, too, the variations in light and shade in the com- 

 plexity of the flower are no small addition to the complete rounded 

 effect. Last, the blossom must be large enough to be appreciated, 

 but still not so large as to lose that delicacy which is one of its 

 greatest charms. 



The variety of color which is to be found in the sweet pea is 

 wonderful. Since the four original varieties were sent out, 

 numerous additions, to say nothing of improvements, have been 

 made. At the same time, there are a few stock types, about 

 which the others cluster. If one wishes to enjoy the best of all 

 there is in the sweet pea without growing what would appear to 

 be an amateur variety test, it can easily be done by selecting the 

 best representative of each type of color and growing them and 

 them only. All classes and colors may be easily divided into 



