Around the turn of the last century, the peony market was in disarray. Some sellers were calling any given peony any name that they wanted to give it. They were also introducing like or similarly named new cultivars. Peonies were really confusing to buy and consumers were moving away from buying peonies.

So the American Peony Society was formed in 1903 and its initial mission was to get this horrible mess under control. They worked with Cornell University and APS members sent in cultivars that were grown and evaluated. The resulting document is here:

https://archive.org/details/cl...

Also available is THE BOOK OF THE PEONY by Alice Howard Harding.

https://archive.org/details/bo...

It goes into more detail about the history of peonies.

Ms. Jessie M. Good's peony promotional material and sales info.

https://archive.org/details/CA...

There is a section on how to raise peonies to win shows that was especially interesting. It also has some info on the reduction of cultivars.

Propagation of peonies is front and center in Harrison's Peony Manual:

https://babel.hathitrust.org/c...

Harrison did some of the things that I planned on doing (burying a peony in order to force it to produce buds, for instance) and I appreciate not needing to reinvent the wheel a century later.

Here is John Eliot Coit's Peony Checklist. This is a list of cultivars that Cornell University would grow and evaluate.

https://babel.hathitrust.org/c...

The text from Coit is interesting in that it does an excellent job of explaining many of the obstacles that he faced in organizing this and it also showed fairly well why this needed to be done.

Thank you for the reading material, Top! I shall look at it over the weekend.

Brand's Peony Manual of 1928:

https://babel.hathitrust.org/c...

Sadly, it has to be viewed online. This is just before the depression, so the end of an age really.

Brand's American Peonies - 1922

https://archive.org/details/CA...

This printing describes Brand's process of raising seedlings.

Top, these little tidbits are priceless. Thanks for posting.