14 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTQRAL SOCIETY. 



growers. Formerly we used to sow our sweet peas like our culinary 

 peas — taking out a drill with a hoe, and running in the seed. This 

 method will not do with seeds costing a penny each ! 



It is the practice of the best growers to sow in boxes or pots during 

 January, February, or early March, and plant out the plants in well- 

 prepared land in April, giving them plenty of room — never closer than 

 twelve inches — often eighteen, twenty-four, sometimes thirty inches 

 apart if land is in specially good condition. 



That is the only way to get grand flowers — flowers two or more 

 inches across the standard, three and often four flowers on each stem, 

 the stems being from twelve to eighteen inches long. 



In an average season, flowers such as these should be available 

 for three months in the South of England and for four or five months 

 in the North of England and in Scotland, if the plants are well looked 

 after, and not a single pod of seed allowed to form. 



Sweet peas are being grown more and more every season under 

 glass. My firm was the first to exhibit sweet peas at the Temple 

 Show, and now about a dozen firms do so. By sowing in September 

 and growing on slowly, which means coolly, till January, when they 

 ought to be potted on and given just a touch of heat, the plants can 

 be had in good bloom during April, May, and early June — really 

 splendid flowers can be had. 



No flower, in my experience, has created anything like such wide- 

 spread popular interest as the sweet pea has done. Take, as a 

 proof of what I say, the fact that there are one hundred and twenty- 

 five societies afliliated to the National Sweet Pea Society, and that 

 sweet peas bulk more largely than any other subject in the advertising 

 columns of the gardening Press. We may ask how long is it going to 

 continue? My answer is — for a considerable time. There is nothing 

 on the horticultural horizon, at the moment, that is likely to eclipse 

 the sweet pea. 



[Note. May 6, 1912. — Since the above lecture was printed Mr. 

 Cuthbertson has sent us the following communication, which throws 

 furtlier light on the origin of the waved or Spencer type of sweet 

 pea.— Ed.] 



** In my lecture on 'New Sweet Peas' before the Eoyal Horti- 

 cultural Society on February 20, 1912, I said regarding the origin 

 of ' Countess Spencer ' (the first of the waved sweet peas) that some 

 colour was given to the opinion that it was a mutation from the fact 

 that"" it was supposed to have occurred in other places than at Althorpe 

 about the same time. I have had confirmation of that since. 



Early in March I received a letter from an unknown correspondent 

 — Mr. E. Viner, 14 Somerset Eoad, Frome — in which he stated that 

 my name had been given him by a friend as one deeply interested 

 in the development of the sweet pea. Mr. Yiner said he thought 

 he could tell me something that would interest me about the origin 

 of the waved sweet pea. My reply was that I should only be too glad 



