A FLOWER ROMANCE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7947, 27 February 1904, Page 3

A FLOWER ROMANCE.

Tho Story of tho Sweet Pea. (Detroit Freo Press.) The man who, more than any other, ia responsible for the development of sweet pea culture in America is the Rev W. T. Hutchins, of Massachusetts, who more than twenty years ago took up the growing of this flower as a relaaxtion and recreation after a nervous breakdown. He had an in« nate love of . gardening, and determined to take up some special variety for the pleasure of mastering and thoroughly knowing one flower. A perfectly grown sweet pea hedge seen in a Boston suburb decided him on the sweet pea. Hardly a dozen sorts were then known, but the vision of that hedge was sufficient to determine him. The ideai of a collection of varieties of sweet peas occurred to, him, and by the removal to another parish, and under more favourable conditions th« minister's sweet pea garden attained' local fame. In a garden fifty feet square he had nineteen varieties, then the limit. In those days little skill was required to grow this flower to perfection/ It made a perfect root, and the bloom was so abundant as to quits hide the foliage. i One day as the autumn season 'was hastening on, and the abundant bloom of nineteen varieties of sweet peas showed signs of a liberal crop of seed, Mr Hutchins, ,who had laboured to swell the missionary 1 collection of his church, thought to himself : "Why not raise some missionary money out of the sweet pea seed?" Fifty dollars for missions from sweet pea seed! He wrote down to the home missionary society im New York, making an offer as foEows, which duly appeared in the Home Missionary magazine: "Any lady sending . fifty cents to the Home Misßionary office will •have her name forwarded to - — — , and will receive a full ounce of sweet pea seed -containing nineteen varieties." Word, had been sent that there was enough seed to" bring 60dol ; but in a few days the secretary wrote, saying : " The 50dol are already in, amd more is being sent — where is the seed to come from?" Back went the word, "Let it go on, the offer will be mad© good to all." And it was ; and that year the amount received by the New York treasury was 125d01. It was tried the following year, until the fame .of the "missionary sweet peas " went from Maine to California. And the full amount gleaned by the home missionary society was something over 600dpl. - The minister's garden did more than disseminate sweet pea geed. It occasioned a literature on this flower. The grower was requested to furnish articles for local newspapers, and this soon led to th« request of a Philadelphia' seedsman for' a book on the subject, 52,000 copies of which went into the trade the first year. About this time the work of the great English specialist in sweet peas, Mr Eckford, of Shropshire, began to be recognised in America. The American enthusiast

wrote to the English authority, and thus •beg-an a correspondence that led to a trip abroad and a visit to that wonderful floral workshop, where he invested in seeds at 6 cent apiece. By 1892 the sweet pea craze was fully on, and Springfield for a time was the head centre of tne interest. Other exhibitors soon surpassed Mr Hubohins, and ho found his main pleasure in having done something toward promoting the spread of, and interest in, the flower. Then the growingi demand created a great call for seed. Large growers in California went 'into the bxuaness. Tho number of varieties had increased to fifty, and it was necessary they should be correctly named and true to type. In 1894, Mr Hutching was sent for by California seed growers and spent a month among 350 acres of sweei peas. Now, SOO tons of sweet pea seed' are grown annually, and one grower has 300 acres. Mr Hutchins's crowning experience come in 1900, when the two-hundredth anniversary of the introduction of sweet peas into England was celebrated at the Crystal Palace, London. He was invited to read a paper on " Sweet Peas in Americal," and did so.