Winter-flowering Sweet Peas 



625 



Blanche Ferry and its descendants 



The following is quoted from an article by Will W. Tracy, in The 

 American Florist, Vol. 13, April 2, 1898: 



" Some forty years ago a woman in northern New York noticed and 

 saved seed from a particularly bright -flowered plant of the Painted Lady. 

 She planted them in her garden, and each succeeding year saved and planted 

 seeds from what she thought were her best plants. She did not raise 



many, some years not more 



than a dozen plants and never 

 more than could be grown in 

 three square beds. She was 

 the wife of a quarryman and 

 her garden was always over 

 limestone ledges where the 

 soil, though fertile, was often 

 not over a foot in depth, and 

 gradually her plants became 

 more compact and sturdy, 

 until after some ten or twelve 

 years she ceased to bush 

 them, simply letting them 

 support themselves. After she 

 had raised them in this way 

 for some twenty-five years 

 a seedsman noticed their 

 beauty, obtained about one 

 hundred seeds, and from them 

 has come the Blanche Ferry." 



This variety was introduced 

 by D. M. Ferry & Co. in 1889. 

 In their catalog for that year 

 it is shown by means of a 

 colored plate. 



Peter Henderson & Co. in- 

 troduced in 1893 the famous 

 white variety, Emily Henderson, a sport of Blanche Ferry. In 1895 

 D. M. Ferry & Co. sent out Extra Early Blanche Ferry, which they 

 produced in 1892. 



Earliest of All was distributed in 1898 by Burpee. In his catalog 

 he says that "it is not only the earHest to bloom in the open ground, 

 but also the most desirable for forcing under glass for winter cut flowers. 

 The dwarf habit of the jjlant (only two feet) renders it much more easily 



Fig. 172. 



-Branching of the- plants of the garden a'nd 

 winter-Jlowering types 



