14 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1894. 



nary peas are from his hand. He is an old Scotchman, and loves 

 his Sweet Peas. About 18 years he has been patiently at work on 

 this flower. For seven years he got no result, and was told by 

 florists he could not improve the Sweet Pea. Besides carrying the 

 old varieties up into improved size and form, he has given us some 

 remarkable new colors and set this flower forward on its way to 

 unlimited improvement. Early in the season of 1893 he sent out a 

 price list offering six of his latest varieties, but a later list, which 

 only few seedsmen saw in this country, offered the entire 12. Spring- 

 field had all of these in bloom. I succeeded in getting good results 

 from all but one. The following are the names and descriptions : 

 Blushing Beauty, a soft, light pink, about the same shade as the Mrs. 

 Gladstone, but of the larger, expanded form ; Duke of Clarence, rosy 

 claret, like the Purple Prince and Monarch in form, but more of a 

 wine color than either of those ; Emily Eckford, a reddish mauve 

 when it first opens and on the first day closely resembles the Doro- 

 thy Tennant, but they part company in color after that, and the 

 former then approaches, as Mr. Eckford says, a true blue — it is 

 characteristic of all the blue Sweet Peas that they are not blue till 

 about the third day ; Firefly, the intensest scarlet-crimson variety we 

 have yet had, and of excellent size; Gaiety, supposed to be a white 

 flower striped and flaked with bright, rosy lilac, but with us part of 

 the blossoms have a cheap red stripe, and the rest have had very 

 faint lilac markings — it either does not hold to the description or is 

 not remarkable ; Lady Beaconsfield, not a loud variety, but of very 

 high quality, remarkable for its primrose yellow wings, and having a 

 soft, salmon-blush standard ; Lady Penzance, one of the most strik- 

 ing and pleasing of all, the entire flower being a beautiful lacework 

 of bright rose pink, and of improved size ; Ovid, another pink variety 

 with margin of deeper rose ; Peach Blossom, a buff-pink, the buff on 

 the standard fading almost into white ; Royal Robe, a delicate pink 

 of fine form, but slightly different from Blushing Beauty ; Stanley, a 

 deep maroon, and promised to be a large flower, which it probably is 

 in England, but with us has been no improvement on the Boreatton ; 

 Venus, a beautiful salmon-buff and the best variety brought out this 

 year. 



It is a bold step for Mr. Eckford to oft'er 12 new varieties in one 

 season, but most of them are decided acquisitions, and we need to 

 make allowance for the severe test of an unfavorable season and the 

 first year's change from the English to the American climate. In 

 1892 we could hardly form a correct judgment of the six varieties 



