TRIALS AND TROUBLES 75 



night in a neighbour's greenhouse, and a well-known English 

 specialist writes me to the same effect. Perhaps this warning may 

 save others. 



Sweet Peas Inoculated. Your experience is certainly in- 

 teresting, but it is necessary that many more results should be 

 published before anything definite can be said either for or against 

 this new method of stimulating Sweet Peas and similar plants. We 

 do not, however, think that inoculation can account for the frost- 

 proof nature of Mrs. Alfred Watkins as against Duke of Westminster 

 not inoculated which subsequently succumbed to the frost (see page 76). 

 At the time of writing there is still much divergence of opinion as 

 to the merits of inoculation with nitro-bacterine : the weight of evi- 

 dence appears to indicate that it is of little practical value so far as 

 Sweet Pea growing is concerned. 



Shading Sweet Peas. You say nothing as to soil and 

 situation, and much depends upon these. Varieties which burn 

 badly in heavy soils and low-lying sites are found to escape unharmed 

 on light soils and breezy hillsides. In an ordinary season neither 

 Nora Unwin, Mrs. Walter Wright, Mrs. Collier, Mrs. Hardcastle 

 Sykes, Jeannie Gordon, King Edward VII., Black Knight, Countess 

 Spencer, nor Frank Dolby will require shading. Henry Eckford 

 should be shaded from the midday sun in all seasons; and from all 

 bright sunshine in an extra hot season. Lord Nelson burns in hot 

 sunshine, but not to the extent that Henry Eckford does ; it takes on 

 a glorious colour in light shade. Mrs. Hardcastle Sykes -often loses 

 a little colour in bright sun, but this can be restored by a temporary 

 shading. The colour of Countess Spencer can be deepened con- 

 siderably in partial shade, and Mrs. Wright and Black Knight are 

 safest with temporary midday shade in hot seasons. 



Yellow Sweet Pea. As a Spencer yellow Clara Curtis is splen- 

 did, I prefer Mrs. Collier to James Grieve, but the latter is excellent. 



Etta Dyke and Nora Unwin Sweet Peas. Notwithstand- 

 ing the undoubted excellence of Nora Unwin, I consider Etta Dyke 

 superior for exhibition purposes. 



Sowing Sweet Peas. In addition to the autumn sowing in 

 frames you should sow out of doors about the end of the third week 

 in March in order to have a long succession of excellent blooms. 

 Wood ashes are splendid, and should be worked into the ground 

 in the spring. 



Waved Sweet Peas. Some of the best varieties with waved 

 standards of the colours you name are Etta Dyke, white ; Countess 



