18 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1894. 



other. Thauk God sunlight is free to all, and its quality is just as 

 rich for one as another. So I say choose a sunny place if you want 

 abundance of bloom. 



2. There is another point in location. Trees may not shade your 

 garden, but they may be near enough to it to rob it of all its fertility. 

 I would as soon have a row of trees shading it on the south side, as 

 to have them near enough on the north or any other side to send their 

 ravenous roots where they will suck both moisture and nutriment 

 away from your vines. The north ends of my rows run to the front 

 fence, and just over the sidewalk are small maple trees and one small 

 elm tree, and they suck the ground as dry as an ash heap so that my 

 vines dry up at the north end and make but a weak display. I shall 

 trench all along the fence and cut off every root, but the old robbers 

 will go at it again, and especially the elm tree. 



3. The matter of soil. I am more and more convinced that a clay 

 loam is best, but by a judicious exercise of common sense any spot 

 of ground that has the sunlight can be made to grow perfect Sweet 

 Peas. I have never had the right kind of soil myself, but, since I 

 learned to grow them, I have never failed. If I wanted a row of 

 Sweet Peas, and had only a city back-yard filled in with coal ashes 

 and tin cans, I would agree to have a magnificent row. Of course in 

 that case I would make a good liberal trench and fill it in with as 

 much care as a big flower-pot. I will speak of the trench method 

 later. Well, take any such garden soil as you have. It may be 

 sandy, or it may be the lightest kind of an old worn out loam. It 

 may be light clay or heavy clay. Of course those of you who are 

 working ground by the acre know what to do in bringing up a barren 

 sand, or a worn out loam to fertility, and how to lighten a heavy clay. 

 But I am supposed to be helping amateurs over the difficulties of a 

 row of Sweet Peas. People ask, should the ground be rich? I say, 

 yes, and yet from the reports I receive of many failures I suspect 

 people are overdoing the matter of making their ground rich. You 

 ask a gardener about culinary peas, and he will say that dwarf peas 

 will bear and need rich feeding, but tall peas you must look out for 

 lest you drive them to vines by rank feeding. Well, Sweet Peas are 

 tall, and many people do get rank vines and no blossoms, and over- 

 feeding is partially to blame. But I am trying to make my ground 

 very rich, for the reason that Sweet Peas have a season of six months, 

 and I want them to keep sending up fresh branches clear into Octo- 

 ber. Of course we are not growing seed, for if we were we should 

 plan our fertilizing so as to mature the crop evenly and at a much 



