THE BONNEWITZ GARDENS, VAN WERT, OHIO 
A Wonderful New Peony 
I have visited the gardens of the most celebrated peony men 
both in America and in Europe, but in none of them have I received 
the same inspiration which I found in the garden of my good friend 
Doctor Neeley, of Paulding, Ohio. But my friend has gone from 
earth and I will miss him and his garden. 
He knew plants, shrubs and trees better than any other man I 
ever met, and it was surprising how much of his knowledge came 
from his own observations. God had given him an intuitive love of 
nature, and had endowed him with a keen mind which instantly 
grasped the relationship between different forms of plant and 
animal life, for he saw God’s laws working in all of them. His help 
has been invaluable to me, and it was a pleasure to notice how men 
would journey long distances to meet him and be proud ever after 
to speak of him as friend. 
On one of my visits ten or twelve years ago, he showed me a 
beautiful dark red poppy which he had grown from seed, and which 
was blooming for the first time. I am sure now, that in those days 
of my business activities, my appreciations were influenced too 
much by money values. Instead of telling him of the beauty which 
I could see in this new seedling to which he had given his wife’s 
name, Lula A. Neeley, I instantly said, ‘'Doctor, that poppy is worth 
a hundred dollars.” 
Two years later when he had accumulated some stock, I wrote 
a description of it and published it in an attractive booklet, in 
which I offered it for sale at twenty-five dollars per root. The re¬ 
sponse was generous and during the rest of his life we were equal 
partners in this poppy and each of us received several times the 
amount of money I envisioned on my first sight of it. 
The Doctor gave me of everything in his own garden and I in 
turn gave him freely of mine. Four years ago he gave me a root 
of a new seedling peony which he had named MRS. J. H. NEELEY, 
and that peony gave me this year, a thrill equal to that of JUBILEE 
many years ago. To understand it, let me tell you this little story: 
Over thirty years ago Mrs. Bonnewitz and I were in Rome, at 
Easter time, and as it was our first trip, there was much to see, yes, 
far too much to expect to retain it all in memory. There was one 
picture, however, a picture in a palace, I believe, which I will never 
forget, for in it I saw the colors of the dawning day painted by the 
hand of man as I had never seen them before. In it a goddess was 
driving the chariot horses of the rising sun, which, itself, was yet 
below the horizon. The color of that sunrise has remained with me 
until this day, but nowhere had I seen it until the very last Monday 
in which peonies bloomed in my garden and then at three o’clock in 
the afternoon on the face of peony MRS. J. H. NEELEY, I found it 
again. That color without a trace of blue, violet, or lavender is the 
color the peony hybridizers have, for years, been seeking. 
Of course I was excited with my thoughts of the future of that 
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