94 THE SCHOOL GARDEN BOOK 



locality is introduced into another, variations are also likely 

 to appear. There is an inherent tendency in all plants to 

 vary, and the new varieties which are listed every year in the 

 plant catalogues are chiefly the result of the careful selection, 

 by hosts of gardeners throughout the world, of those varia- 

 tions which seem likely to prove most useful or attractive to 

 mankind. 



While plants tend to vary, by repeatedly selecting seed 

 from those that attain a desired standard, they may also be 

 trained to come true to a type from the seed. The varieties 

 thus established are simply mile-stones of progress. The 

 best variety of a given plant this year may be succeeded by 

 a better one next year, and that in turn by one still better the 

 following year. So it is that the novelties of the seed cata- 

 logues ought at least to represent the latest progress in hor- 

 ticultural art. 



An excellent example of what may be accomplished in the 

 improvement of flowers in a comparatively few years is found 

 in the history of the sweet pea. Thirty or forty years ago 

 the modern, improved varieties of this flower did not exist. 

 In America the principal sort was the Painted Lady, growing 

 here and there in old-fashioned gardens, and perhaps four or 

 five other varieties not well established. In England a sim- 

 ilar condition existed. Then there came to the help of the 

 plant a patient gardener, named Henry Eckford, who lived 

 in Shropshire, England. He began the cultivation of the 

 existing varieties with a view to their improvement, and to 

 his long patience we are chiefly indebted for the increased 

 attractiveness of these blossoms. 



"When I first took up the sweet pea," he wrote, "there 

 were six or eight distinct varieties in cultivation, and experts 



