[Illustration:  Our seedling Harriet Farnsley, a very late all one color pink.  This variety is in bloom at the same time as Richardson’s Rubra Grandiflora, at a time when most good peonies are gone.  The flower from which this photo was taken measured seven inches across.]

Now if any of you are tempted to grow peonies from seed let me warn you not to get too enthusiastic in anticipating results.  The chances are that 999 out of every 1,000 will have to be discarded.  Test thoroughly before you decide to keep.  The flower my father and I both decided our best when it first bloomed we no longer keep.  Our best flower is one we took no particular notice of the first two years it blossomed.

But do not let me discourage you.  Though eight or ten choice varieties may seem small returns, still there is a pleasure in the work that you cannot fail but feel.  And when you go forth into your fields after your stocks of better sorts have increased so that you can have each kind blooming about you in long rows, and as you see first this beautiful variety and then that come into bloom, you feel well repaid for the years of waiting and the labor you have bestowed upon them.

Mr. Brand:  A great many people ask the question whether just as soon as the peony has blossomed they cannot cut the top off.  It would be a great mistake to do so.  Your peony growth does not complete its development until about the middle of September, and if you cut the top off just as soon as the plant has blossomed you are going to have a great many of them rot.  We had a very striking illustration of this two years ago.  Just as our peony season was closing we had a severe hailstorm which cut our peony beds right off down to the ground.  We couldn’t save the tops if we had wanted to.  That fall when we dug our roots it was almost impossible to fill our orders, because the roots were in such terrible shape.  The tops were removed before they ought to have been.

Talking about disappointments with peonies, I think the peony I was most impressed with of all the seedlings we have had came good but once.  That was eleven or twelve years ago.  As I look back upon it I think this was the most beautiful flower we ever grew, but it never came good but that once.  I was so impressed with its beauty that I took it from where it bloomed in the seedbed and planted it at my house in the garden.  When it came on to bloom, it was a disappointment and has been such ever since.  I still keep it, hoping that some year it may bloom again as it did that first year.

Mr. Harrison:  Not a bit of it.  They are the most lying vegetable on the face of the earth.  May I ask if Mr. Peterson, of Chicago, is here?  He is an expert peony man.  I presume we will all like to hear from him.

Mr. Peterson:  I haven’t anything to add; if you want to ask questions I will be glad to answer them.

The President:  Ladies and gentlemen, you probably know that Mr. Peterson is one of the expert peony men of the United States.  In fact, as far as fifteen years back we were able to get some of the newer and better varieties from this gentleman.  I never had the pleasure of meeting him, but we want to meet you, Mr. Peterson.  You have all heard of Mr. Peterson, the peony man of Chicago and a life member of this society.  (Applause.)