THE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY OF NEW YORK 



rose or any other plant in cultivation. For its seed can be purchased for 

 the merest trifle, and it will grow and give some returns in the shape of 

 graceful, sweet-scented blossoms, even in the city yard, or in a tub, or 

 under almost any sort of adverse conditions. Secondly, because the sweet 

 pea above any other plant responds to good cultivation and liberal treat- 

 ment by yielding to us a magnificent display of flowers over a long period, 

 forming a grand exception to the old adage which says " you can't have your 

 cake and eat it too," for the more sweet peas you pick the more you have, 

 and, in fact, if you don't pick them you won't have them for very long. 

 The rose and the carnation are sometimes so improved by the hybridist as 

 to lose one of their greatest charms, their perfume, but not so with our 

 favorite, no matter how we improve the sweet pea it is the sweet pea still. 



While realizing that you expect from me practical cultural remarks, I 

 feel sure that you will pardon a brief excursion into the history of the 

 introduction to cultivation and the subsequent development of the sweet 

 pea to its present measure of perfection, believing, as we do, that the 

 pleasure and fascination of the cultivation of any plant is enhanced by a 

 knowledge of its history. 



As it is almost certain that the sweet pea reached America through 

 Great Britain, we must go back there for a glimpse of its earlier develop- 

 ment. About the last year of the seventeenth century, an Italian priest, 

 named Cupani, found the sweet pea growing wild in the island of Sicily 

 and sent some plants of it to a Doctor Uvedale, at Enfield, in England. 

 We do not know much about it from this date for the next hundred years 

 or more, but suppose it to have been cultivated to some extent. In 1820 

 some six colors or shades were listed and in i860 there were nine. Then, 

 about 1877, commenced the great Eckford epoch, when varieties and shades 

 of color were multiplied with great frequency, together with an increase in 

 size and substance. This period of development continued without inter- 

 ruption till about the dawn of the twentieth century, when the sweet pea 

 world was delightfully astonished by the advent of the waved standard, 

 better known as the Spencer type. As this type reigns supreme to-day, at 

 least among the summer-flowering kinds, we may well spare a minute to 

 note this wonderful occurrence, and to observe that when the sweet pea 

 had reached such a stage of development that it was ready to make a break 

 — or, as gardeners call it, " to sport " — it did so in three different places the 

 same season, viz: — in Earl Spencer's garden, Northamptonshire (whence 

 the name of Spencer); with Mr. Unwin, at Cambridge; and with Mr. 

 Eckford, at Wem, in Shropshire. This tendency to break into several 

 difi^erent sections the same year has been noted in some other plants, and 

 one might argue that it was a sign that nature was jealous and opposed 

 to monopoly. The old grandiflora variety Prima Donna appears to have 

 been the chief factor in the parentage of the Spencers, and its general 

 tendency to throw four flowers to each stem seems to have been trans- 

 mitted as a characteristic of this type. The last few years have brought 

 still another change, in duplex standards and occasionally duplex petals. 



