for a premium. If you live either north or south of Philadelphia you 
have an opportunity to bring either the extra early or the extra late 
kinds, and you know at our shows we like to see all the varieties. 
Select your best plants now for exhibition flowers next year, tell your 
peony enthusiast friends to do the same thing. Give the plants the 
care and dressing you think they should have to produce show blooms 
in season, and at the appointed time come and inspire us with your 
love and enthusiasm for this noblest of God's flowers — the Peony. 
Lee R. Bonne witz, 
Van Wert, Ohio. 
Peony growing has been found to insure old age and the best 
blossoms have been developed by the older growers, it was said by 
members of the American Peony Society, whose exhibition of the 
blossoms, given in co-operation with the Horticultural Society of 
New York, at the American Museum of History, closed yesterday 
afternoon. 
One of the famous old peony growers is Mrs. Pleas, now nearly 90 
years old, who grew, among others, two famous blossoms, "Jubilee," 
a beautiful' white blossom, and "Opal," an opalescent pink. Mrs. 
Pleas worked for thirty years with her peonies and commencing with 
the commonest stock, year by year discarded all but the finest seedlings 
until she finally achieved the plants which have made her famous in 
the peony world. 
One of the amateur growers, who showed specimens of Mrs. 
Pleas's two flowers, was Lee R. Bonnewitz, who brought the blossoms 
with him from Van Wert, Ohio, wrapped in wax papers. Mr. Bon- 
newitz is a collector of new varieties of peonies. He has now 221 
varieties. — New York Times. 
Seeds from Abroad 
Most of the flower seeds and many of the garden seeds used in 
this country are raised in Europe; Germany, France, Holland and 
England. The great European war has been in progress for over two 
years, and since all able-bodied men between the ages of eighteen and 
forty-eight have been called to the colors, it can easily be seen that the 
skilled labor of the seed growing establishments has been greatly 
reduced. Some of the older men, assisted by boys, girls and women, 
who had always worked in the seed fields and thereby acquired a 
knowledge of more or less importance, have been obliged to assume 
