CORONATION FLOWER.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3193, 12 April 1911, Page 3

CORONATION FLOWER.

PRIZE OF £IOOO FOR A BUNCH OF SWEET PEAS. A SPECIAL SHOW. In order to assist the cause of amateur gardening, the London “Daily Mail” is offering a prize of £I,OOO for the best hunch of BAveet peas—the Coronation flower and the suggested emblem of The Over-Seas Club—groAvn by an amateur in the British Isles. The bunch entered for the competition is to consist of not more than tAvclve spikes or sprays and not feAver than three varieties.

A special dhoAV Avill he hold in London during July, at a date to he fixed presently, at*which the £I,OOO prize will' be aAvarded. Second and .third prizes of £IOO and £SO respectively and 1,000 medals will also bo given. The only gardeners not eligible to compete are: (a) Professionals—-that is. those avlio groAv floAvers for profit, and (b) Amateurs Avho employ more than one gardener. HUGE DEMAND FOR SEED.

Since -the announcement in “The Daily Mail” extraordinary croAvds have gathered outside the retail shops in London and in the provinces, many of Avliich have posted up notices of the competition. In Wolverhampton opposite a seed store in Dudley Street, the people had to be moved on again and again by the police. At Manchester the inquiry for SAvect pea seeds slioavs an enormous increase. “The prize,” said one seedsman, “Avill do a great deal further to popularise tiie HoAver.” “I foresee,” said the head of one firm, “that every seed of some of the more’popular sorts will he sold; and it is a question if any of the more common and older sorts. Avliich are grown also in America and on the Continent, Avill remain. We ourselves shall sell over tAventy tons of swe-ct pea seed.” Leading seed merchants in Liverpool, Birmingham, Leeds, and Newcastle speak of the enormously increased demand for SAvect pea seeds this season and of the effect the £I,OOO prize Avoukt have in stimulating sales. A Birmingham dealer. A\diose output is half a million packets a season, said that the craze was not for the new varieties. “Where I sell one collection of noA'elties,” he said. “I sell twenty of the more ordinary varieties.” One of the chief growers finds that numbers of his buyers are asking for red, Avhito, and blue varieties to groAv together in honor of the Coronation year. THE SMALL GARDENER’S FLOWER. “The Daily Mail” has received a large number of congratulations from fforal societies of different sorts. They included enthusiastic congratulations from an amateur chrysanthemum society in South Loudon, and a long letter "offering co-operation from a cose society in the north. The Editor of

‘•Garden Life'’ Ayrites to “The Daily Mail” : “The announcement you make is as opportune as it- is generous and is worthy of the best traditions of the “Daily Mail.” The enthusiasm Avliich your prize will evoke Avill do more towards popularising the sweet pea than could be done in half a dozen years by ordinary propaganda methods. You have my heartiest congratulations for the success of the scheme.”

The competition is especially one for the small gardener in the Old Country. -Sweet peas grow particularly well in suburbs, perhaps because they rejoice in soot. They can be grown in any outdoor space large enough! to hold a tub. and personal care is the chief requisite. The National Sweet Pea Society has branches all tlie Empire, even so Far off as Australia and Noav Zealand, and A'ast quantities of sAveet-poa seed are sent to the Antipodes.