(1928)  Page(s) 56.  
 
A List of Fifty of the Best Inexpensive Varieties
Red Varieties.
A. J. Davis (Brand).  Red.  A. J. Davis is another good red that resembles Adolphe Rousseau in a good many ways except in color.  Where Rousseau is a deep red Davis is a lighter and brighter red.  The plant is tall, the flowers are loosely built, and held erect.  It also is a fine landscape variety.  The flowers are large to very large.  A very good variety.

(1928)  Page(s) 56.  
 
A List of Fifty of the Best Inexpensive Varieties
Red Varieties.
Adolphe Rousseau (Dessert & Mechin).  8.5.  Red.  This variety is one of the very best of the early dark reds.  The blooms vary with the seasons, and some times they vary on the same plant.  Some times the flower is loosely built and at other times it is quite double.  The petals are very large, long, broad, and of good substance.  The plant is very tall with heavy dark foliage.  The flowers are of great size, held well erect, and extremely showy.  This is a magnificent landscape variety and also a wonderful show flower.  The color is a deep rich velvety maroon red showing stamens.

(1928)  Page(s) 58.  
 
A List of Fifty of the Best Inexpensive Varieties
Pink Varieties
Archie Brand (Brand).  7.5.  Pink.  We receive more compliments on this variety from all over the country than on any other one variety.  Those who have purchased this peony express their surprise at its low rating.  We believe that Archie Brand deserves a rating of 8.5 and when the next Symposium is taken we believe that you will find it around this mark.  When the last Symposium was taken, this variety could not be rerated as the committee decided that all peonies that had been voted on by twenty or more people should not be included in the new vote.  Archie Brand is a large round, full rose-type blossom of an even shade of sea shell pink.  The foliage and stems are light green and very clean in appearance.  The buds as they develop are very attractive, enormous in size, and wonderously beautiful as they open.  As the flower just opens, it is at its most beautiful stage.  The petals of good length are then banked in a compact mass with four distinct corners to the bloom which gives a very pleasing effect.  The guards then begin to fall away leaving a great round ball of bloom in the center.  This variety becomes coarse when heavily fertilized.  It does best on clay soil.

(1928)  Page(s) 58.  
 
A List of Fifty of the Best Inexpensive Varieties
Pink Varieties
Asa Gray (Crousse).  8.1.  Pink.  When grown in a soil that is suitable to it, and well grown, this is one of the most beautiful of all peonies.  It seems to do best in heavy dark loams.  The flowers are large and of true rose-type.  The guard petals are salmon pink, thickly marked with minute specks of deeper pink.  It is a variety that is easily identified, a prolific bloomer, and fragrant.  Probably the most beautiful of all the speckled varieties.

(1928)  Page(s) 60.  
 
A List of Sixty Choice Peonies of the More Expensive Varieties
Red Varieties
Auguste Dessert (Dessert).  8.7.  This is one of the best of all the later peonies sent out by Dessert.  This variety was considered of such excellence by the originator that he gave it his own name.  We give Dessert’s own description.  “Flower cup-shaped of fine form, with rounded petals, very brilliant, velvety crimson, carmine, with silvery reflex and often streaked white; very large silvery border; visible stamens intermixed with the petals in many flowers.  A superb variety, awarded certificate of merit at the Paris show, June 2, 1920.”  We consider this variety and Elisa the two best of the later varieties sent out by Dessert.  A brilliant light red that is very distinct in form and a most desirable sort.

(1928)  Page(s) 56.  
 
A List of Fifty of the Best Inexpensive Varieties
Red Varieties
Augustin d’Hour (Calot).  7.8.  This peony is mid-season and of bomb type.  It is an extremely large, showy flower.  Its primary petals are narrow and built up close and high.  It is a very deep, rich, brilliant solferino red, with slight silvery reflex.  It makes a splendid cut flower, and although it rates below 8, we feel that it has a place in any large collection.

(1928)  Page(s) 57.  
 
A List of Fifty of the Best Inexpensive Varieties
White Varieties
Avalanche (Crousse).  8.7.  White.  A large, compactly built, globular cone shaped flower.  The blossom develops a distinct creamy white color which surrounds a center of delicately tinted lilac-white petals with a few wide petals edged with tracings of carmine.  Plant of medium height, strong, upright and a profuse bloomer.  A splendid flower for landscape effect.  A wonderful show flower.  At the National show held at Ontario this variety was awarded first as the best specimen bloom in the show.  Avalanche and Albatre are one and the same.

(1928)  Page(s) 60.  
 
A List of Sixty Choice Peonies of the More Expensive Varieties
White Varieties
Ball o'Cotton (Franklin).  8.8.  White.  We can use all the good new whites in peonies that we can get and this is one of the good ones.  Ball O’Cotton is one of the finest new whites that have been brought out in some time.  The flowers are globular in form, entirely transformed, and of the purest white.  Ball O’Cotton wherever shown has caused very favorable comment and is now looked upon as an outstanding white.  At the Northwestern Peony and Iris show for 1927 held at Faribault, the largest and finest show ever put on by this association, it won first prize in the class of twenty best blooms of white.

(1928)  Page(s) 57.  
 
A List of Fifty of the Best Inexpensive Varieties
White Varieties
Baroness Schroeder (Kelway).  9.0.  White.  This is considered one of the finest peonies grown.  When the last Symposium was taken, this variety received a rating of 9.0 after 79 people had voted.  When the buds first open, they are a delicate blush, but the flower soon fades to a milky-white.  This is a variety that should be found in every collection.  It comes into bloom late, after most of the white peonies are gone.

(1928)  Page(s) 56.  
 
A List of Fifty of the Best Inexpensive Varieties
Red Varieties
Benjamin Franklin (Brand).  8.1.  Red.  An unusually tall dark red variety which resembles Adolphe Rousseau very much in color and make up, but it is a much stronger plant and a much more profuse bloomer than that desirable variety.  The stems are long, strong, and heavy, holding the blooms well above the plants.  This makes the variety very desirable for landscape effect.  Each stem carries a single blossom, which makes it also a very desirable cut flower variety.  This is a good dark red which we do not think is fully appreciated.  We would class it as the best midseason very dark red peony for cut flower or landscape purposes.  You will not be disappointed if you have a Ben Franklin in your collection.