HISTORY OF EARLY-FLOWERING SWEET PEA I33 



Four years later Burpee & Co. sent out a still earlier 

 strain under the name of " Gould's Extreme Early Earliest 

 of All." This Earliest of All strain originated with Thos. 

 Gould in California. 



" Mont Blanc was introduced by Ernest Benary, of 

 Erfurt, Germany, in 1900. It is said that this variety 

 came from Emily Henderson. Burpee, in his catalog for 

 1901, says that it is the exact counterpart of Earliest of 

 All except in the color of the flowers, which are white. 



"• Earliest Sunbeams appeared in 1904 and was de- 

 scribed as a primrose Mont Blanc, with which it was 

 identical except in color. 



" Jn 1904 Thos. Gould, of California, the originator of 

 the strains of Earliest of AH, found a white sport in a stock 

 of the Reselected Earliest of All, which was identical with 

 Earliest of All in every respect except color. Unlike Mont 

 Blanc, it has a black seed. This variety, Earliest White, 

 was introduced in 1906 by Burpee, who strongly recom- 

 mended it for forcing. 



" Thus we had, in 1906, a group of early-flowering 

 varieties represented by Blanche Ferry, Extra Early Blanche 

 Ferry, Earliest of All, Extreme Early Earliest of AH, Mont 

 Blanc, Earliest Sunbeams, and Earliest White, which were 

 of distinct habit from the usual garden types and which 

 were sometimes forced under glass. These varieties were 

 all descendants of Blanche Ferry, from which they originated 

 as seed sports either directly or indirectly. A further 

 significant fact is that Blanche Ferry is a descendant of 

 Painted Lady, which is the common name of the Sweet 

 Pea described by Burmann in 1737 as a new species from 

 Ceylon."- — (Bulletin 319, Cornell University, Sept., 1912, 

 Sweet Pea Studies, by Prof. A. C. Beal.) 



From these facts, therefore, it is apparent that although 



