January 24, 1907. 



The Weekly Rorists' Review. 



707 



Carnation Cuttings at Peter Reinberg^s, Chicago* 



you cannot always spare the room for 

 the flats so early in the season. In that 

 case the cuttings will have to be put into 

 the propagating bed until rooted. But if 

 you have to do so, be sure and have the 

 propagating bed thoroughly cleaned out 

 and filled with fresh new sand; and it 

 is best to never use it but once at that. 



K. E. Shuphelt. 



BREEDING GLADIOLI. 



[A sj-nopsla of a paper by H. H. Groff, Sim- 

 ooe. Out., read before the American Breeders' 

 Association, January 18, 1907.] 



As an interested amateur breeder of 

 animated life since boyhood, as well as 

 an enthusiastic horticulturist, the modern 

 knowledge of the similarity of the biol- 

 ogy of plants and animals found me 

 with an open and receptive mind, and 

 as appealing more strongly to the imag- 

 ination than work on animate life, I 

 abandoned the latter, and, to the ex- 

 clusion of almost every other interest, 

 confined my activity to one plant, the 

 gladiolus, with such effect that in over 

 fifteen years I never lost one day during 

 the breeding season. This persistent and 

 continuous activity, with the use of the 

 best material obtainable from all out- 

 side sources, is the price of the success 

 that I am able to claim in the interest 

 of civilization and horticultural science. 

 For an unknown man, in an obscure 

 town, in a country of slandered climate, 

 to bring a semi-tropical plant to Can- 

 ada, as the foundation for a strain of 

 world-wide recognition, seemed the height 

 of folly and a deliberate courting of 

 failure and loss, and it did not take me 

 long to discover that to secure more 

 than partial success meant a severe and 

 persistent fight. 



Conditions of Work. 



I found the conditions of soil and 



climate admirable, and the absence of 

 long continued periods of atmospheric 

 humidity most congenial to the work of 

 successful crossing. Although the sea- 

 son for maturing late crosses is unfa- 

 vorable, I overcame this diflSculty in se- 

 curing the admixture of midseason and 

 late flowering types by cutting the im- 

 mature seed spikes on the first threat- 

 ened frost, and maturing in water a 

 month later — a process requiring much 

 time and trouble — but as pollen from 

 young early flowering types (which 

 bloom till frost) was used, I soon had 

 the valued characteristics of the later 

 flowering sections, available for normal 

 use at a more favorable season, a vic- 

 tory over adverse conditions, of incal- 

 culable value. 



Again, I found that our clear, dry at- 

 mosphere, so favorable to success in 

 crossing, also frequently wilted the 

 flowers; an effect not only making rapid 

 work impossible, but most prejudicial to 

 the "taking" of crosses so made. 



This difficulty I overcame by daily 

 carrying the pollen over until the fol- 

 lowing dawn, when I found that the 

 work could not only be accomplished in 

 far less time, but that the percentage of 

 successful crosses was most materially 

 increased. The two foregoing original 

 practices are the result of a struggle for 

 control, and as I have never heard of 

 them being advised, I may include them 

 in this record of results. 



Points for Plant Breeders. 



The time allotted for this address will 

 not permit me to report more than a 

 few of the points that I am sure will be 

 valued by plant breeders. 



When I began this work, over fifteen 

 years ago, although Europe had been 

 engaged on it for 100 years, the ground 

 was only broken. Varieties lacked vital- 



ity, reproductive powers and adaptability 

 to changed conditions, and my first work 

 covered a complete series of violent out- 

 crosses in which every section was made 

 use of to bring the desirable features 

 possessed by each under control for trans- 

 mission in cross-breeding. From the 

 foundation work of those first years, by 

 the aid of selected types as sires, ac- 

 cording to the practice of animal breed- 

 ers, has this control been handed down 

 with continuous yearly progression to the 

 past season. 



In America the flower was discred- 

 ited, and the demand so influenced by its 

 lack of quality, value and beauty that 

 growers thought of allowing large blocks 

 to freeze in the fields with the view of 

 stiffening the market — certainly not a 

 very progressive idea. The advent of my 

 new hybrids changed all this, and the 

 exhibits made at the Pan-American Ex- 

 position, where they were awarded a gold 

 medal, and at the St. Louis World's 

 Fair, where they secured the grand prize, 

 not only repopularized the flower, but 

 exercised a favorable reflex influence on 

 existing low grade stocks. Thus no ex- 

 isting acreage has been displaced, but 

 tlie values have been improved, with over 

 100 acres of the highest quality in the 

 world added to this country, of such ex- 

 cellence as to enforce commercial recog- 

 nition throughout the civilized world. 

 Surely this may be included in the record 

 of results. 



My practice has proven that not only 

 can the scientific worker do all that he 

 may sanely plan to do, but he will find 

 that from year to year mutations will ap- 

 pear beyond the range of the area of his 

 expectations, of such progressive value 

 that he will be led onward by an ever 

 lengthening and broadening horizon — be- 

 yond the conception of the human mind. 



The past season has afforded an 



