WHAT AMERICA HAS DONE FOR THE PEONY 
A. P. SAUNDERS 
Secretary American Peony Society 
A Glance Backward Inspires Enthusiasm and Further Insures the Ultimate Perfection of this Sump- 
tuous Flower Which Owes So Much to American Development That We Feel It Peculiarly Our Own 
GEORGE HOLLIS 
Who, beginning about as Mr. Rich- 
ardson left off, lived for his Peo- 
nies and gave us Loveliness, Maud 
L. Richardson and Standard Bearer 
MRS. SARAH A. PLEAS 
Waiting long for fame and honors she 
has been richly rewarded at last in 
the triumphs of her lovely Jubilee 
which sweeps everything before it 
IHOUGH it can be grown in 
any climate where it does 
not suffer too much from 
drought in summer, the 
Peony is by preference a northern 
plant. The rigors of winter even 
in the Canadian Northwest have 
no terrors for it. No wonder then 
that it should be a popular plant 
in regions where the Rose is for the 
most part only a source of disap- 
pointment. On your skill as a 
gardener too the Peony makes less 
demand than almost any other 
hardy perennial. For though one 
of the most glorious of cultivated 
plants, it has the constitution of a 
weed, and can very nearly take care 
of itself in the struggle for existence 
which all things must make. 
But it cannot effect the improve- 
ments in its own bloom that we still 
wish to see. For these the hand of 
man is needed; and it will require 
still many years of diligent work 
before its development has been 
carried even to those limits which 
we can now foresee. In this de- 
velopment American growers 
should and will bear a leading part. 
But before going on to consider 
this let us study a bit of history, 
making application of it as a par- 
able. It has to do with another flower, but that is a detail. 
In the first half of the seventeenth century there arose in 
Holland one of those contagious manias which provide food 
for thought to our 
specialists in mob 
psychology, and a 
lesson in, though 
not an example of, 
common sense, to 
all mankind. The 
craze of which 1 
speak is usually 
called the Tulip 
Mania. Everyone 
has heard of it; yet 
its history is worth 
recalling. It be- 
JOHN RICHARDSON 
Of Dorchester, Mass., who was our pioneer and who pro- 
duced Grandiflora, Milton Hill, and Walter Faxon. Re- 
produced from a daguerreotype taken at Dorchester in 1851 
I N THE earlier stages, bulbs of 
new varieties of Tulips were 
much sought after, and before long 
began to be sold at prices which 
appear to us almost incredible. A 
curious history which I have at my 
hand, states that by the year 1634 
“the rage among the Dutch to 
possess them was so great that the 
ordinary industry of the country 
was neglected, and the population 
even to its lowest dregs, embarked 
in the Tulip trade.” Within a short 
time after this fortunes were in- 
vested in bulbs, and we read of 
100,000 florins being paid for forty 
bulbs. Of two bulbs of a certain 
variety — all that were known to 
exist in Holland — one was ex- 
changed for twelve acres of build- 
ing ground, the other for 4600 flor- 
ins, a new carriage, two grey horses, 
and a complete set of harness. More extraordinary still, a single 
bulb of the variety called the Viceroy figured in what must be one 
of the strangest trades in history. It is recorded that it was ex- 
changed for two 
lastsof wheat, four 
lasts of rye, four 
fat oxen, eight fat 
swine, twelve fat 
sheep, two hogs- 
heads of wine, four 
tuns of beer, two 
tuns of butter, one 
thousand pounds 
of cheese, a com- 
plete bed, a suit of 
clothes and a silver 
drinking-cup ! 
gan as a true horticultural enthusi- 
asm for a fine flower, newly intro- 
duced to the gardening public; 
passed through that stage into one 
of an unbridled desire for posses- 
sion of something that was rare; 
and from that into the final stage, 
in which it became a gambling 
mania pure and simple in which 
everything was risked. 
29 
