'^ ACRES OF SWEET PEAS 153 



enjoy any or all of his favorite varieties much 

 earlier — and later, too — than heretofore. I am 

 alluding to the early or winter flowering sweet 

 peas, the sensation of the last seasons, though 

 little has been written about them. 



To understand the full significance of this 

 latest development in sweet-peadom we must 

 cast just a glance at what led up to it. The 

 gardener who immortalized himself as the creator 

 of the modem sweet pea was an Englishman 

 who lived to his eighty-second year, passionately 

 devoted to his specialty. Henry Eckford was 

 his name, a venerable-looking gentleman whom 

 to see is to love, though it be but as pictured 

 (see page 95 of the valuable brochure Sweet 

 Peas Up to Date, by America's leading special- 

 ist, G. W. Kerr, published by W. Atlee Burpee 

 in Philadelphia) . As Horace J. White remarks in 

 his beautifully illustrated little volume on this 

 flower: "Eckford undoubtedly made the sweet 

 pea a general favorite, and the sweet pea made 

 the name of Eckford as music to the ears of all 

 who love flowers." Substance, size, form, color, 

 and fragrance — all were improved by him. Be- 

 ginning early in the 'seventies, he had before the 

 end of the century put out some seventy-five 

 new varieties, which did much to popularize 

 the sweet pea in America, too. 



And yet his was far from being the last word 

 on this fascinating subject. In 1901 Silas Cole, 

 gardener to Earl Spencer, created a tremendous 



