PEONIES 
P EONIES are becoming more popular every year. The demand for cut flowers is 
increasing; we have been shipping thousands to Boston all through the season — 
more than ever before. Cut when in bud or when half open, and kept in water 
a day or more, they will keep several days. For weddings, decorating churches or 
private dwellings, there is nothing better. A large jar or bowl filled with twelve or 
fifteen Peonies in full bloom is highly decorative. We had them this year from the 
twentieth of May until the last of June. 
We have been raising Peonies for nearly forty years, and have sent them all over 
this country and some to Europe. 
Nine years ago, our Mr. T. C. Thurlow, owing to ill-health, sold his entire stock 
of Peonies (over 70,000 plants) to a Chicago party, reserving a few each of the very 
best varieties. Since then we have been working to get up the very best stock possible, 
buying every year only the very best from England, France and this country. Many 
of these have proved a disappointment — some are poor bloomers, while others do not 
open well lint seem to blight in the bud. Peonies are children of the storms, and do 
equally well on the wind-swept prairies of the west or the cold climate of New England. 
Some of the French experts have coddled and petted them so much in order to get 
new varieties that they come to us diseased and enfeebled, and many of them succumb 
after being here a year or two. 
Peonies often change color somewhat with a change of location. Those that are 
deep pink in England are often nearly white here, and single ones show a constant 
tendency to liecome double. 
We have raised many seedlings which are very beautiful, ranging in color from 
pure white to the deepest crimson, and being both single and double mixed they are 
very showy, and are equally as good for massing in landscape work as the named 
varieties. 
We have several seedlings of great merit—we think equal to many of the new 
French varieties, but we have not yet named them or put them on the market and do 
not propose to unless they show very decided qualities or are better than others of 
the same color and habit. 
There are altogether too many varieties now, which makes it very confusing to 
those who want to make a selection. We shall try to reduce the number of our varie¬ 
ties in future; we had rather have a list of fifty of the very best from early to late, than 
to have thousands, as. some of the European growers claim to have. 
There are probably thousands of people who live in country homes who have 
never seen a first-class Peony and this list is designed especially for them. City people 
can have their parks and conservatories, but we people who live in the country deserve 
the best, and with the advent of the telephone, improved roads, and free rural deliv¬ 
ery, we will soon be on a par with our city cousins, besides enjoying many things 
which they cannot have. 
We have put our prices of the more common varieties lower this year, as our 
stock of these has very much increased, but they are just as good as ever and we can 
recommend them to every one. Although the latter appear to* be more plenty in this 
country, the new and rare ones, such as we offer in Series E and F, are generally 
higher than ever, and the demand for these, both in this country and in Europe, 
seems to fie on the increase. 
We have for the last three years examined our Peonies when they were in bloom, 
and marked “O.K.” those which, according to the best authority, appeared to us 
correct. Further than this we cannot warrant. Peonies differ so much in different 
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