About the first thing I can remember, as I look back over the years that are past, is my father’s field of peonies, and of a man standing at a table with a large peony clump before him cutting it up into divisions.  I remember wondering how such beautiful flowers could come out of such an ugly, dirty root.  The bright little eyes, some red, some white and others pink interested me, and boy fashion I put many questions to the man about them.  And then my father came by and noticing my interest in the matter, though a busy man, stopped and explained to me the process of dividing the roots.

That was forty years ago, but from that day to this I have watched with ever increasing interest the growth and handling of peonies.  I was but a small boy then, but I remember my father gave me his big pruning knife, and under his guidance I divided my first peony.  And I thought I had done fairly well, for he patted me on the head and said it was well done and that some day I would make a nurseryman.

The peony industry as far as the West was concerned was in its infancy then.  We had few varieties—­peony buyers had not yet become critical.  I can remember of but four sorts:  the white variety, Whitleyii, now called Queen Victoria; the red Pottsii and the two pinks, Fragrans and Humeii.  Peonies were then sold as red peonies, white peonies and pink peonies, and that was all there was to it, and the customer felt very lucky if he got the color he ordered.

But a wonderful change came over the industry along in the nineties.  Some of the better varieties had worked west in different ways, and people began to waken to the fact that there were more than simply red peonies, white peonies and pink peonies.  Such varieties as Festiva Maxima, Edulis Superba, Marie Lemoine, Eugene Verdier and the like came to us.  Flower lovers slowly began to realize that the old, despised “piny” of mother’s garden was a thing of the past, and that here in its stead we had a glorious and beautiful flower.  And as the better varieties have continued to come from year to year, the interest in the flower has continued to increase until now I think I am safe in saying that in the colder portion of our country at least, and in our own state in particular, the interest manifested in the peony is greater than that taken in any other flower.

And it is of this modern peony that I am asked to tell you—­of its cultivation and care, how it is multiplied and how the new sorts are produced.

Right here at the start I wish to correct an erroneous impression about the peony that has been spread broadcast throughout the land by means of not too carefully edited catalogues and misinformed salesmen.

We often hear an agent say or we read in some catalogue, “When you have the peony planted all is done.”  Now this is not true.  It comes a long ways from being true.  I think the very results which the following out of this belief have brought about are accountable for the production of more poor peonies than all other causes put together.  The peony, it is true, will stand more abuse than any other flower you can name and still give fairly good results, but if you want good peonies you must take good care of them.