12 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1894. 



Though Mr. Eckford is slow and keeps us about two years behind 

 the times, there are other points that I can report upon to-day with 

 great good cheer. In the first place we are getting ready for happy 

 times. Our large seed-houses have now found out that in handling 

 Sweet Peas they are handling a flower which, probably more than any 

 other popular flower, comes true to name from seed. You do not 

 get all colors from one pod of Sweet Peas, as you might from pinks 

 or chrysanthemums. Here is an annual, each seed of which, as a 

 rule, produces its own distinct variety. So true is this that it is 

 extremely difficult to cross varieties and get any direct result. From 

 the very construction of the closed keel, and the fact that each blos- 

 som fertilizes itself when two-thirds open, the pure blood of each 

 variety, with peculiar exclusiveness, flows on in an established strain, 

 and you get from a reliable packet of seed the thing you expect from 

 the name. 



Now our seedsmen have sold a great deal of cheap mixture, and I 

 have no doubt many of them have been skeptical about keeping the 

 varieties distinct, and the new varieties have been coming over from 

 England so fast that we have not kept pace. And then a few big 

 seed-houses, perhaps, get Mr. Eckford's own seed and description of 

 his varieties, but they are too busy in passing their seed along to go 

 into particulars, and so the catalogues of the country put in their own 

 "hit or miss" description of varieties, and in buying j^ou are as 

 likely to get Black for Boreatton as anything. Then the groicing of 

 seed is new in this country. It is only about four years ago that they 

 disputed with me in Boston about growing Sweet Pea seed in America. 

 I thought it could be done, but did not anticipate the success of the 

 California growers. Now some of you doubtless did not feel very 

 cheerful last year to find that the plump California seed did not 

 always come true to name. They, too, have been groping in the 

 dark, and I can tell you there will be disappointments again this sea- 

 son in the seed we shall buy this Spring. I can almost tell you what 

 you will get from every package of seed, for the bulk of the seed sold 

 here this year will be American. It is splendid seed, but it is going 

 to take our growers one year more to get their lists down to accurate 

 descriptions. And that is one word of cheer I bring. The first of 

 May I expect to visit California, at the invitation of Messrs. Morse 

 & Co., and assist, so far as I am able, in vogueing their entire crop 

 of Sweet Peas. This is both a generous act on their part, and a 

 genuine indication of their wish and purpose to send out hereafter 

 only such seed as is true to name. The present year will begin an 



