Six other plants bloomed that season.  One was of the Japanese type.  The others singles.

By the next spring the small plants were well established, and we knew by their vigorous growth that we might expect the most of them to bloom that season.

Thorough cultivation was given from the start, and by the middle of May the bed was covered with a mass of buds.  June came.  The blooming season was at hand.  Slowly the buds began to show color.  Here and there over the field a petal began to lift.  A short space of anxious waiting, and then a day came when it seemed as if the bed had been touched by a hand of magic, for from one end to the other it was one solid blaze of color.  Before us were thousands upon thousands of flowers and no two alike.

As quick as the flowers began to open we started to grade and mark them.  It took two men working steadily for a week to inspect and mark this bed.  Everything that looked choice was marked No. 1.  Everything that looked as though it stood a chance of coming choice, if given a better chance, was marked No. 2.  All other doubles were marked double with their color.  And all singles were marked single with their color.

When the digging season came those marked Nos. 1 and 2 were lifted and divided and each planted in a bed specially prepared for them.  Each sort was staked.  These plants were set in rows three and one-half feet apart and three feet apart in the row.

Intense cultivation was given them for three years.  The performance of each sort was recorded for each year.  At the end of the third year those sorts which had come good two years out of the three were again lifted and planted in another soil and watched closely for another period of three years.  This gave us a pretty definite knowledge of their behavior, made us acquainted with them.  It toned down, as I might say, the enthusiasm with which we first selected them, allowed of our making careful comparison with the best sorts, and finally enabled us to keep what were really choice.  We did not have any need for the others.

Of the ones first selected as No. 1 from the seed bed, about thirty-five in number, we finally kept eight; of those marked No. 2, about sixty.  We afterwards selected two as first class.

Those plants simply marked double in the seed bed were planted in a regular field bed by themselves.  Each plant was divided and staked.  This bed was allowed to stand three years and the plants were carefully noted each year as they bloomed for varieties that we might have accidentally overlooked in the seed bed.  Among these thousands of plants we found two sorts which we called first class.  One of these, though it is sixteen years since the seed was planted, we are just about to send out.

I have given you the history of this single bed because it shows about how the seedling peony must be handled.  We have since varied our method in handling in a single respect.  We no longer plant our seed direct in the field.  We find it much better to plant broadcast in seed beds.  These are much more economical to keep clean the first year.  After the little seedlings are one year old or, better, after they are two years old, we lift them in September and plant them in a permanent bed.