8 4 



THE BOOK OF GARDENING. 



should be done on successive days, until the entire spike has 

 been cross-fertilised. 



I have tried growing the Gladiolus in flower-pots, but do not 

 recommend this method, as it is rather troublesome, and not 

 very satisfactory as to results. I have had considerable experi- 

 ence in purchasing new varieties of Gladiolus, and had always 

 to make up my mind for some losses. The plants would 

 sometimes die off in a manner riot to be accounted for, and 

 sometimes when the blossoms were just on the point of 

 opening. In the year 1875, quite half of a collection of 

 Gladiolus of considerable value died off. It is very annoying to 

 lose valuable plants in this way ; but it is owing to a con- 

 siderable extent to insufficiently decayed manure coming into 

 contact with the roots ; and as seedlings— at least to the extent 

 of fifty per cent. — are as good as the parents, and a hundred or 

 more plants can be obtained from one spike, it seems foolishness 

 to spend money on expensive named varieties. It would not 

 serve any useful purpose to give a long list of named . varieties ; 

 this must be left for the "Appendix." Any good seedsman 



could supply a dozen or more of 

 the best sorts in the season. I 

 advise amateurs to get a dozen 

 of the best, and raise seedlings 

 from them. The seedlings, after 

 flowering for two or three seasons, 

 have a tendency, as well as the 

 purchased named varieties, to 

 degenerate. 



The leaves of the Gladiolus 

 remain green till very late in the 

 autumn, but they should be lifted 

 from the middle to the end of 

 October. As they are forked out 

 of the ground, cut the stalk off 

 close to the crown, shake off the 

 adherent soil, saving the small bulblets (Fig. 43), or "spawn," 

 clustering round the base of the parent corm, spread the corms 

 out to dry in an airy place, and when well dried, store in boxes 

 or bags until planting time; but they must not be exposed to frost. 

 The Royal Horticultural Society, the Crystal Palace Company, 

 and other leading societies, gave me a score or more first class 

 certificates for my seedling Gladioli; but they degenerated under 



. Fig. 43. — Gladiolus Corm, 

 showing Method of 

 Increase. 



