r 4 6 THE NEW GARDENING 



methods of culture. When this question engages our 

 attention we find that there is much to be said on both 

 sides. Modern sorts grown in the old way would cer- 

 tainly not give the wonderful results which are seen at 

 the principal shows ; on the other hand, no system of 

 culture applied to the early varieties could have pro- 

 duced the length of stem and the size of bloom which 

 rejoice us at the present day. 



We may deal with varieties and culture separately. 



Of every colour that the old smooth-edged type of 

 flower (sometimes called the grandiflora) could boast 

 we now have counterparts with frilled blooms, and in 

 addition we have colours that were unknown in previous 

 years. With the frilling there came, strange to say, 

 much larger flowers. When a plain-edge and a frilled- 

 edge of the same colour are put side by side it is found 

 that the latter is the larger in every case. This is not 

 easily explained, indeed, the reason for it is remote. 

 The texture is not inferior the frilled flower is not 

 " rolled-out," as it were. It is not an attenuated form of 

 the grandiflora. The waved flower has equal substance 

 with the plain, and has greater area of petal. It is 

 also more freely produced than the majority of the grandi- 

 flora varieties, but this is explainable by the fact that it 

 sprang from a particular plain-type sort Prima Donna 

 which had the merit of bearing more flowers to a stem 

 than the majority of its contemporaries. Prima Donna 

 was not, however, an exceptionally large grandiflora 

 Sweet Pea. It could transmit the quality of free-blooming 

 but not of great size. 



The first two of the frilled race were Countess Spencer 

 and Gladys Unwin, and they came practically together, 

 but the former was the larger and more completely 

 waved and became the typical variety of the new class, 



