THE PEONY. 

 By Bertrand H. Fare, Wyomissing, Pa. 



DeliTBTed before the Society, with stereopticon illustrations, February 16, 



1918. 



I remember the first Peony I ever saw. It was the first year 

 when father took us west, and I was six years old. It grew in my 

 aunt's garden. It wasn't a real Peony, it was just a "Piney," 

 one of those old-fashioned red ones that grew in all old ladies" 

 gardens, but I thought it was very beautiful. I told her if she would 

 give me a bloom, I would drive her cow home from the pasture that 

 night. The arrangement was mutually satisfactory, and after 

 further negotiations she agreed that if I would drive the cow home 

 for one week, she would give me a "Piney toe," and so I came into 

 possession of my first Peony. 



More than 25 years elapsed before I owned another Peony, but 

 when in 1897 I came to Wyomissing, where I could have a real 

 garden, one of the first things I determined was to have a complete 

 collection of Peonies, "a white one, a red one and a pink one." 

 Then I discovered that EUwanger & Barry had a great collection 

 as many as twenty kinds. After I had gotten these, one of Le- 

 moine's catalogues fell into my hands and, after some hesitation 

 over the extravagance, I made the plunge. I sent to him my first 

 foreign order in 1901. Only then did I realize what was before 

 me, but it was too late. The Peony bug had gotten me, as it has 

 gotten many others, and will get you too if it once gets fairly hold 

 of you. Orders from Dessert and others soon followed. Then 

 from Kelway in England. 



There must have been a sort of Peony epidemic prevalent at that 

 time, for I learned afterAvards that a number of those who today 

 are well known in the Peony world, were similarly affected at about 

 the same time in the same manner, the two Petersons, Shaylor, 

 McKissock, Ward, John Good, Betcher and others. In the Thur- 



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