SWEET PEAS UP TO DATE 



the general effect, while light grasses and a little of 

 their own foliage inserted among the flowers will lend 

 grace and elegance to the arrangement // not overdone. 



THE "SPENCER" TYPE OF SWEET PEAS 

 The introduction of Countess Spencer in 1904 will 

 be marked as creating a new era in the Sweet Pea 

 world. This most lovely of pink Sweet Peas is of 

 immense size, and the forerunner of quite a new type. 

 Previous to the Countess Spencer appearing, our Sweet 

 Peas were either of hooded standard or expanded 

 upright standard forms. Countess Spencer was the 

 first to appear with beautifully frilled and wavy stand- 

 ard and wings, of immense size but, alas! it was not 

 fixed to type, as it sported very badly. This sportive 

 character, however, has proved really a blessing in 

 disguise, as so many of the sports were of quite new 

 shades, at the same time containing all the parents' 

 characteristic form and size. All would have been 

 right had the various seed-growers not been in such a 

 hurry to rush those unfixed sports upon the market, 

 much to the disgust of many amateur growers. 



A peculiarity about the "Spencer" sports is that 

 they generally come in duplicate: i. e., the same 

 color in Spencer and grandiflora types. Take, for 

 instance, Helen Lewis and John Ingman: with Helen 

 Lewis sport there was also a very large grandiflora 

 sport of the same color, similar in appearance to Lady 

 Mary Currie, and with John Ingman appeared a variety 

 of much the same color, but also of grandiflora type. 

 The result was that both were saved, and as the old 

 type is so much more prolific in seed-bearing, the result 



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