MH E 
GeAw kh) Dy aN 
MAGAZIN & 
231 
A few typical portraits showing the modern developments in garden Gladiolus 
Panama (pink) 
The veteran grower, Matthew Craw- 
ford, has given us the well known May, 
besides Margaret and Jessie and others. 
His Mrs. Watt must be given a place 
among the finest. We get in the habit 
of calling Mr. Crawford a “veteran” 
because he has been in the game longer 
than the rest of us, but he is not old, he 
is an active young fellow of seventy, or 
thereabouts. 
Of those who have contributed to our 
present list one or more of conspicuous 
merit we must add the names of Ban- 
ning, Christy, Cowee, Stewart, Miller, 
Black, Coblenzth, Woodruff, Teas, Kir- 
choff, Gage, Joerg, Harvey, Tracy, etc. 
Mr. Groff tells of a Mr. Moore, of In- 
diana, who has done excellent work. On 
the roll of honor we must place the 
name of one woman, Mrs. Austin, of 
Ohio, whose beautiful blossoms were 
first exhibited in 1914 and were seen 
again last year at Newport, and in at 
least one Hastern garden. Mrs. Aus- 
tin’s productions rank with the finest. 
While the Americans have been thus 
engaged the men of Europe have not 
been idle, and we must credit them with 
sending us many varieties of excep- 
tional beauty. The one man who stands 
ahead of the others as a producer of 
superior sorts is the German, Pfitzer, 
though close to him come the French- 
men Barre, Brunelet, Vilmorin, the 
younger Souchet, and the Lemoines. 
The English firm of Kelway have pro- 
duced a large number of new sorts but 
few of them have found favor with 
American growers, though their Golden 
Measure must be reckoned among the 
elite. In Holland very little attention 
was given to these splendid flowers until 
quite recently, though within these few 
years they have brought out several 
that are prize winners. 
Growing seedlings is fascinating work 
—“sport” it might be called, for it evokes 
the spirit of the gambler that is either 
active or latent in most of us. A grower 
Dawn (coral pink) 
Lemoinei (many colors) 
puts into his carefully prepared seed- 
bed some twenty thousand or more of 
these tiny seeds, each one of which will 
produce a blossom that will differ from 
its neighbor. Some of these seeds were 
taken from plants that had been selected 
to yield desired results, and had been 
hand pollenated; while others have 
been pollenated by the bees and the 
hummingbirds. One of these may prove 
the very best seedling of the year, and 
another may produce the very finest 
blossom that was ever seen. 
For two years at least, and in some 
cases three, he must tend that bed of 
seedlings most carefully—they require 
much more care than bulbs. After the 
years of waiting and watching and toil- 
ing the time of blooming approaches, 
and at last comes his supreme hour. 
Will his dreams be realized? Generally 
there is no single redeeming blossom to 
be found, and the entire lot is thrown to 
the “cheap mixture.” But he is a true 
sport; he tries again. And so it comes 
about that year after year thousands 
upon thousands of these cheap mixtures 
are put on the market. Many of these 
find their way to the department stores, 
from whence they are distributed to the 
multitudes who love flowers but have 
little money to spend on them. 
Yet, mind you, they are good, these 
seedlings, and many will compare fa- 
vorably with some of the popular sorts. 
Then why, if these seedlings are good, 
are they sold as “mixtures”? The an- 
swer is that a seedling, to be worth 
while, must be more than just good—it 
must be superior. To make its way to 
popularity and to success it must have 
distinction or must be better than simi- 
lar sorts already established. 
To propagate a seedling until a stock 
of bulbs has been accumulated of suffi- 
cient quantity to warrant them being 
put on the market, takes usually about 
ten years, and each year the bulbs and 
their increase must be planted and har- 
Kunderdi (ruffled) 
America (clear pink) 
vested and cared for, at an expense that 
will be repaid only if the variety is so 
much superior that it will win in com- 
petition. 
It is an interesting fact that it is often 
difficult for the originator of a variety 
to form a correct judgment of its real 
merit. Sometimes his judgment is right, 
-but more frequently it is wrong; and he 
will not only extol those that others fail 
to admire, but at times he will think 
rather slightingly of those that others 
persist in praising. It is told of Mr. 
Groff that he sent out America, Mrs. 
Francis King and Independence in mix- 
tures, and, by the way, in each case it 
was an American grower who discoy- 
ered them. Likewise, with similar dis- 
dain, Kunderd put in a mixture that 
brilliant beauty, Mrs. Frank Pendleton, 
and he valued but slightly his lovely 
Myrtle until the Massachusetts Horti- 
cultural Society awarded it a silver 
medal. 
I recall quite distinctly some Gladioli 
that grew in my grandmother’s garden. 
The colors were red and yellow. The 
blossoms, which were long and narrow, 
were not open and lily-like as the mod- 
ern forms are, and they were set on 
one side of the stem, said stem being 
two to three feet high. 
Of the varieties that were grown in 
that period there are but few remain- 
ing in cultivation. Souchet’s Shakes- 
peare is still to be found in the cata- 
logues, though. it is used chiefly for 
forcing and appears in the shops in the 
early summer. lBrenchleyensis alone 
retains popularity with the amateur 
gardener. This splendid flower—it is a 
dazzling scarlet—was produced by a 
Mr. Hooker, who lived in the English 
town of Brenchley, in whose honor the 
variety was named. The first bulbs put 
on the market were handled by Youell, 
the father of the present secretary of 
the American Gladiolus Society. To-day 
America sends Gladiolus bulbs to Europe. 
