Thomas Laxton, like Gradus, but with larger pods and 
larger grains 
and the peas soon become dry and tasteless 
after reaching full size. Dwarf Champion, 
growing two feet in height is more slender 
in the vine and has more open foliage, 
resembling the old favorite Champion of 
England in everything but height. 
The tallest growing late varieties will aver- 
age from four to five feet in height under fa- 
vorable conditions and need a strong, firmly 
planted brush or trellis support to keep 
them erect, and the rows spaced at least 
four feet apart to admit the light and air 
freely to the lower portion of the vines and 
to the soil about the roots. The old varie- 
ties of thirty to forty years ago, White 
Marrowfat and Black Eye Marrowfat, are 
Why Cheap Seed is Expensive—By C. H. Claudy, 
THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 
strong growers and very productive, with 
well filled, rounded pods and peas of me- 
dium size but very inferior flavor, becoming 
tasteless if allowed to attain full size before 
being gathered. A recently offered variety 
of this type, Marblehead Marrowfat, has 
a slightly shorter and thicker pod and peas 
of distinctly sweeter flavor. The popular 
favorite of this class, Champion of England, 
is a good grower and productive, with large 
pods and peas of good size far superior in 
sweetness and flavor to the Marrowfats 
which it succeeded. I think the French 
Petit Pois should be more generally planted 
owing to the ease with which it can be grown 
and its great productiveness. It is a tall 
growing, slender vine, with slightly curved, 
fully rounded pods, slender in form and 
closely packed with small peas, which like 
the small extra earlies are deliciously sweet 
if gathered young. And that is the secret; 
for as soon as they attain full size the peas 
are dry and tasteless. 
The best known of this type is the Tele- 
phone, a very excellent variety in every 
way, but unfortunately some of the stocks 
offered have been allowed to become mixed 
with a small, round-podded type greatly 
inferior in quality. 
Evolution is another very large pea of 
this class, of about the same season as Tele- 
phone. Alderman and Boston Unrivaled 
are still larger podded and later in season 
—but the reader will please bear in mind 
that Boston, England, is the city from which 
the latter is named. Telegraph is a very 
large podded, late variety, largely planted 
on Long Island for the New York markets, 
Marcu,-1908 
and while of excellent appearance, it is 
inferior to the others in flavor. 
SUGAR OR EDIBLE PODDED PEAS 
These differ from the ordinary peas in that 
the pods gathered while young and tender 
and before the peas have developed fully, are 
broken and cooked like snap beans. They are 
not popular, but to my palate are very pleas- 
ing and they add variety to the table delicacies. 
The Dwarf Sugar Gray is the earliest 
variety, being a little later in season than 
the American Wonder, grows fifteen inches 
high and bears a large number of rather 
small, fleshy, green pods. The Tall Gray 
Sugar grows about three feet high, is very 
productive and has fairly broad pods three 
inches in length. The Mammoth Melting 
Sugar is offered under a number of different 
titles. It is later than the Tall Gray Sugar 
and does not bear nearly as many pods, but 
they are frequently six to seven inches long, 
an inch and a quarter broad, of a deep, 
waxy yellow, quite meaty and the best 
flavored of this class. A new type of the 
sugar pea has recently been introduced 
from France under the name of Half 
Sugar. In this the pods can be gathered 
young and cooked like snap-short beans 
or the peas can be allowed to reach full size 
and shelled like the common garden type. 
The dwarfest of all peas is Sutton’s 
Forcing (of the second early group) about 
eight inches high and bearing three pods 
to the vine. On account of its very dwarf 
habit, it is used chiefly for forcing under 
glass. On page go will be found a planter’s 
quick guide to the varieties, 
Washing- 
ton, D. C. 
A SURPRISING COMPARISON BETWEEN TWO LOTS OF SEED. THE ONE SURE WAY FOR THE AMATEUR 
TO GET THE BEST, IF HE IS WILLING TO PAY THE PRICE— HINTS ON HOME TESTING FOR VITALITY 
OOD seed is worth good money. 
The quality of the seeds used is such 
a factor in farming success or failure that 
it may be broadly stated, as a general rule, 
that the unsuccessful farmers are the farmers 
who buy cheap seed. It seems difficult 
for them to realize that seed at fifteen dollars 
a hundred pounds can be much cheaper than 
seed at five dollars a hundred pounds. The 
up-to-date modern farmer never hesitates 
to pay the top price for what he wants. 
Price, indeed, is a small consideration to 
him; he wants the best quality. This is 
more especially true of high-grade vegetable 
seeds. 
As the ordinary buyer of seeds cannot 
tell by looking at them whether they are 
good or not, he must take the word of the 
seedsman from whom he is purchasing, and 
many times the seedsman himself does not 
know the exact quality or he does not know 
their history. So buy from a dealer in high- 
grade seeds who has a reputation to main- 
tain. Cheap seed is expensive! And this 
cannot be better illustrated than by the 
The vitality test is made by counting out the seeds 
that have sprouted on a damp cloth 
following analysis of two lots of red clover 
seed which were actually bought in the open 
market, one lot costing five dollars and 
twenty cents a hundred pounds, and the 
other fifteen dollars a hundred pounds: 
Sample r Sample 2 
Percentage of weed seeds 25.78 .09 
Percentage of dirt, sticks and stones 26.16 1.08 
Percentage of red clover seed 48.08 98.83 
Percentage of red clover seed that 
germinated . : 5 ° 18.25 95.86 
Number of weed seeds per pound 139,727 150 
Actual cost per hundred pounds of 
red clover seed that germinated $28.48 $15.65 
Obviously the farmer who bought the 
cheap seed made an expensive investment. 
Had he bought one-third the quantity, 
buying good seed, he would have had twice 
as big a crop. The temptation to mix good 
and poor seed or otherwise to adulterate 
what they sell is apparently a temptation 
too big to be resisted by some dealers, as 
the profits are so large and the risk of detec- 
tion seemingly small. 
But whether the 
seed is adulterate 
