SWEET PEAS 

 AND HOW TO GROW THEM 



CHAPTER I 



The Story of the Sweet Pea 



THE opening scene in the story of the Sweet Pea is laid in the 

 island of Sicily some two hundred years ago. Our authentic records 

 of this lovely flower date from that period, and we are indebted for 

 its discovery to the zeal of Father Francis Cupani, an Italian monk, 

 who, in common with many others of his calling, was an eager 

 botanist. But the Sweet Pea as Father Cupani found it was 

 scarcely a flower to send its discoverer into ecstasies so far as its 

 intrinsic beauty was concerned, for we may, if we wish, still grow the 

 same species (Lathyrus odoratus) that Cupani found two centuries 

 ago. Nowadays, when the most exquisite Sweet Peas are 

 to be had in countless variety, we are scarcely in a position to 

 form an unbiassed opinion of the merits of the wild Sweet Pea as 

 it met the eye of its happy finder. For who can doubt that he, an 

 ardent botanist, one who was always on the look out for fresh plants, 

 took delight in the discovery of this new treasure ? How little he 

 knew the tremendous part which his poor, small-blossomed, purple- 

 petalled flower was to play in the world of gardening ! that in 

 the twentieth century it should be grown in every garden in the 

 United Kingdom, become a favourite flower in the distant states' 

 of America, found an industry, and have a society devoted solely to 

 its interests a society, wonderful to relate, whose chief work lies 

 now in attempting to reduce the overwhelming number of varieties 

 and to restore order where there is something like chaos, an im- 

 mense number of sorts with a still greater number of names 

 surely this progressive record of marvellous activity speaks for 

 itself and is one of which any flower may be proud. 



Perhaps no flower has a more fascinating story than the Sweet 

 Pea ; and the last chapter is not yet in sight. Exactly how, when, 



