1894.] ESSAYS. 23 



are makiug a root. Keep the weeds and the hens out, but do not 

 fuss over them in May. There ought to be little need of watering 

 them till later, and do not put any • suds on them till they are 

 stronger. They must grow slowly or you will have no blossoms. 



jMy new book will illustrate seven or eight styles of trellis. A little 

 ingenuity allows plenty of ways of making a trellis, but it must be six 

 feet high, and must not cramp the vines. 



12. I am sorry that people disobey one rule, and that is in letting 

 pods grow, and saving a lot of seed. If they are growing seed all 

 right, but if they think they can enjoy blossoms and save seed too, 

 I simply say they are welcome to such seed as they will get. They 

 will have about a third as many varieties next year, the cheaper sorts 

 predominating, and if they follow it up they will have just such Sweet 

 Peas as their grandmothers had. An ounce of a dozen varieties can 

 be bought at a first-class dealer's for ten cents, and an ounce is enough 

 for most folks. What enjoyment that means for ten cents ! 



Now we shall be out of fashion if we do not have a tine row this 

 year. The best rule of all is, Keep on trying till you succeed. 



There is a question before this country of getting seed of the very 

 highest grade. We want to be assured that if we pay a first-class 

 price we are getting seed that will produce varieties at their very best. 

 If we buy a packet of Eckford's Monarch we want it to be the full 

 sized Monarch, and not the old Black Sweet Pea. If we pay for 

 Senator we want Senator in its noblest form, and not the old Dark 

 Striped. Our choice is going to lay between sending to Eckford for 

 his sealed packets, or else beginning now in this country to start a 

 line of special seed growing in which the most careful attention shall 

 be given to a small acreage to hold these new varieties at their best. 

 Of course it will be to the interest of our large growers to make their 

 seed stock just what it ought to be. They cannot save a few pounds 

 of seed each year from their general acreage, and use it for seed 

 stock, and expect to keei) the varieties up to their best type. They 

 should cultivate an acre or more every year by itself, and put on to 

 that acre a skilled florist, and bring every vine to Eckford's highest 

 standard. The seed grown on that special acre is the seed you and I 

 want. The seed you and I get is from a field crop grown on large 

 contracts, and most of it is good seed, but I see plainly the indication 

 of the varieties falling back to an inferior form and size. Well, Mr. 

 Eckford sells no variety less than a shilling a packet, and while you 

 can rely on his seed being true, you cannot rely on its germinating in 

 our severe climate. I like those California growers, and have great 



