244 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



they came so far and cost so dear. It would therefore appear 

 that some different and probably superior varieties were obtained 

 from Holland than the Rounceval Pease mentioned by Tosser. 

 Gerarde, in his " Herbal," 1597, says thus : — u There be divers 

 sorts of Peason differing very notably in many respects. Some 

 are of the garden and some of field, and yet both counted 

 tame. Some with tough skins or membranes on the cods, and 

 others have none at all, whose cods are to be eaten with the 

 Peason when they are young, as those of Kidney Beans ; others 

 carry their fruit on the top of the branches, and they are esteemed 

 and taken for Scottish Peason. which is no: very common." I 

 have had photographs taken of two of the Peas : hat are illustrated in 

 Gerarde's " Herbal," where the following sorts are enumerated : — 



(1) Pisuni majus (Rounceval Pease). (Fig. 58.) 



(2) Pisum minus (Garden ft Field Pease). 



(3) Pisum umbellatum (Tufted or Scottish Pease). 



(4) Pisum excorticatum (without skins in the cods). (Fig. 59. j 



This last is doubtless the remote ancestor of the 4 Sans 

 parchemin ' Peas, which are so highly esteemed on the Con- 

 tinent, but which are little grown now in England. 



In the " Art of Gardening," published in 1688, we are in- 

 formed: "Pease are of divers kinds, and some of them the 

 sweetest and most pleasant of all Pulses ; the meaner sort of 

 them have been long acquainted with our English air and soil ; 

 but the sweet and delicate sorts of them have been introduced 

 into our gardens only in this latter age. 



11 There are divers sorts of Pease now propagated in England, 

 as three several sorts of Hotspurs, the Long, the Short, and Barns' 

 Hotspur, the Sandwich, five sorts of Rounceval, the Grey, White, 

 Blue, Green, and Maple Rounceval. Three sorts of Sugar Pease, 

 the large White, small White, and Grey Sugar Pease. The Egg 

 Pease, Wing Pease, and Sickle Pease ; whereof the Hotspur are 

 the most early, pleasant, and profitable of all others. The Sugar 

 Pease with crooked cods, the sweetest of all. The large white 

 and green Rouncival, and the great Egg Pease we shall more 

 particularly advise to be propagated in our gardens. 



" The Hotspurs are the speediest of growth of any : that being 

 sown about the middle of May will in six weeks' time return 

 ripe again into your hands, no Vegetable besides being so quick 



