24 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, [1894. 



confideuce iu their inteutiou to do the best possible thing for us, but 

 it is ''business" with them, and they have got to grow tons of seed 

 as cheap as possible, and all their seed passing through the trade 

 must be of this kind grown on contract or for trade prices. The 

 wholesale prices are not very different between the Hopkins strain 

 and the Morse Company. I have no doubt that as this business 

 develops they will give us what we pay for. They would take double 

 pains with a crop for double price. I shall do my best to keep the 

 matter stirred up at this end. The Sweet Pea is now an exhibition 

 flower. In chrysanthemums you can make slips form the finest sorts ; 

 in Sweet Peas we depend wholly on seed. You can buy pansy seed 

 at all prices. "We certainly ought to have two sets of prices on 

 American grown Sweet Peas. I have no doubt this country is to be 

 the great source of supply for this seed. I even believe our Pacific 

 coast will by special culture carry this flower in form and size and 

 substance beyond Mr. Eckford's most sanguine work. Perhaps the 

 demand has hardly yet risen for high priced seed, and certainly but 

 few of Eckford's expensive packets are sold in this country, but the 

 tide of interest is rising. The Sweet Pea is at a stage now when a 

 special trade should be cultivated iu the interest of those for whom 

 price is a secondai'y consideration, and those who are entering the 

 lists for competitive floriculture. You can get no definite idea from 

 most of the seed catalogues about this flower yet. There is no uni- 

 formity in prices, partly because no two, perhaps, put the same 

 quantity of seed in a packet. And you may buy your seed of Burpee, 

 or in Boston, or in Worcester, and you will get the same grade of 

 seed. And it is good seed. I would by all means buy of your home 

 seedsmen just as far as they keep the varieties. You may buy the 

 Lottie P^ckford, but you will not get it of any house in this country 

 this year. Every seedsman thinks he has it, but he has not. Mr. 

 Eckford, himself, has lost the original Lottie Eckford, and this year 

 begins over again with a new description. You may buy the Miss 

 Hunt. I have two or three different lots of it, but have no confidence 

 in either, and have just sent to English headquarters for it. Our 

 California growers got mixed up on it. One of our best Boston 

 houses last year thought they had the Primrose. As soon as I saw 

 the seed I said it was not Primrose, and they wrote on and found the 

 growers had been misled on that. You may buy the Delight, and 

 you will likely get the Fairy Queen. You may buy the Empress of 

 India, and you will get a mixture of Beatrice and Mrs. Gladstone, 

 and so on. But that is because we are a fast growing country. Our 



