148 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
SWEET PEAS AND THEIR IMPROVEMENT. 
WYMAN ELLIOT, MINNEAPOLIS. 
This is an annual, free-growing, flowering vine, which at the pres- 
ent time is very highly prized by amateurs and commercial florists 
for its many colored, fragrant-scented blossoms, and is deservedly 
one of the most popular annual flowers that is grown in the garden. 
In its season its flowers are more sought after for decorative pur- 
poses by the gentler sex than any other, the rose excepted. 
When I looked over my library to see what others had to say at an 
early date about this annual, I was somewhat surprised to find how 
little had been written about what is now one of the most popular 
flowering annuals in the garden; for instance: in “Parlor and Gar-_ 
den,’ by Edward Sprague Rand, Jr., printed in 1864, comprising 
four hundred and eight pages descriptive of desirable plants for 
the flower garden, the whole of four lines was devoted to the sweet 
pea. 
Within the past few years there has been a wonderful development 
of the possibilities of what was once considered but an ordinary 
flowering annual; the change wrought has taken years of diligent 
thought and energy by some of the most distinguished propagators 
on this and the European continents, to bring this much admired 
and very popular flower to the degree of perfection which it has 
now attained. 
SOIL AND CULTIVATION. 
The sweet pea will grow in any rich soil, though they are more 
productive and remain longer in full bloom in a deep, loamy, reten- 
tive soil that has been deeply cultivated. In preparing the ground, 
it is preferable to have it well enriched with thoroughly decomposed 
manure, excluding all that possesses the least fermentation. Spade 
or plow in quite deeply the previous fall. This gives the soila 
chance to become well compacted, and if very light and‘sandy when 
the drills for seed sowing are made I tread in them with both feet, 
making the soil very firm. In planting I prefer double rows, one 
foot apart, using one trellis for the two rows, each two rows five feet 
from the next two, and made running north and south rather than 
east and west, that the sun may shine equally on each side. The 
seed should be sown for the first crop as soon as the ground can be 
easily worked in the spring, in drills three inches deep, quite 
thickly in the rows, that no vacancies may occur from loss of 
plants by cutworms or otherwise. It is much better to thin the 
plants by pulling out those of weakest growth where they are too 
thick than to replant later and have an uneven growth. 
The seed should be covered one and one-half to two inches deep 
and the soil well firmed over them. As the young plants appear 
above ground draw fine soil toward them, and as growth proceeds 
hill up about two inches. At this time unleached ashes, sown at 
the rate of one bushel to each two square rods of ground occupied, 
will prove very beneficial, and when the vines are six inches high, 
form an irrigating trench, eighteen inches from the rows, to be 
