CHAPTER XVI. TVV^O THOU- 

 SAND ACRES OF SW^EET PEAS 



A NOTHER opium dream of fairy- 

 i\ land, or can you, when awake, 



/ A imagine it — two thousand acres 

 / % of voluptuous fragrance exhaled 

 / ^ by millions of sweet peas of 



every conceivable hue? Perhaps 

 you can if you ever have had the good luck to 

 be in the Riviera, between Cannes and Nice, at 

 the time when the roses or jasmines, the jon- 

 quils or violets, are ready to be plucked by the 

 ton for the manufacture of natural perfumery. 

 The two thousand acres of sweet peas are not 

 grown for their fragrance, however; they are 

 raised for seed. 



California, which boasts that many acres of 

 sweet peas — one Eastern firm alone has three 

 hundred near Santa Barbara — grows at least 

 seventy-five of every hundred pounds of sweet- 

 pea seeds used all over the world. Soil and 

 climate are just right; seed can be sown in 

 November or December, which brings the blos- 

 soms in the very early spring before the sun 

 reaches that scorching intensity which often, 

 in a single day destroys the whole crop. 



Fertilizer is not needed, and, more wonderful 

 still, rotation, so necessary elsewhere, is not 

 required! "They can be grown year after year 

 on the same land, often producing better crops 

 each year, provided, of course, that diseases are 



