54 SWEET PEAS 



when the waved varieties will cease to disappoint, since the first 

 waved variety known, Countess Spencer, itself still exhibits a ten- 

 dency to sportiveness '? There is no doubt that much may be done 

 to ensure true stocks by careful selection and seed saving, and 

 rigorous elimination of " rogues," and lastly, but by no means least 

 of all, by holding the stocks, and growing them on until the grower 

 is satisfied that he has them true. The influence of soil, or situation, 

 or climate, or all three combined, has a marked effect on Sweet Peas. 

 Varieties which have proved true when grown at home by the 

 raisers have sported in the most extraordinary fashion when grown 

 in University College Gardens, Reading, in the trials of the Sweet 

 Pea Society. 



Self-Fertilisation. There is no reason why anyone who grows 

 Sweet Peas should not attempt to raise new varieties by cross- 

 fertilisation if he wishes to do so, and thinks it worth while. That 

 is to say, there is no reason so far as the actual carrying out of the 

 work is concerned, for it is perfectly simple, and to a certain extent 

 a purely mechanical operation. All that I can attempt to do here 

 is to explain to the reader how the actual cross-fertilisation is 

 effected. It is for him to make a study of the matter if he wishes 

 to achieve the best results. Mr. Biffen, of Cambridge University, 

 who carries out cross-fertilisation and selection on Mendelian 

 principles, is credited with the statement that any variety, even 

 waved sorts, may be fixed absolutely. So far as my experience and 

 observation go, the fertilisation of the Sweet Pea is effected while 

 the flower is still in the bud stage. One has often been told that 

 bees have been noticed busily at work among the flowers, carrying 

 pollen from one to the other, and this has been taken by many 

 amateurs as conclusive evidence that cross-fertilisation is effected 

 by bees. But such observers fail to take into consideration the fact 

 that the bee can only get the pollen when the flower has passed the 

 bud stage, and experience goes to show that self-fertilisation has 

 then taken place. 



There is, however, one point that I have never seen touched 

 upon and that seems to leave a loophole for some slight doubt as to 

 whether the action of the bee at so late a stage must be void. It has 

 been proved (not with Sweet Peas, but with other flowers) that when 

 cross- fertilisation has taken place a short time after self-pollination, 

 a cross-bred progeny has resulted, owing to the action of the foreign 

 pollen being stronger than that of, the flower's own pollen. But 

 I should imagine in the case of the Sweet Pea self-fertilisation 



