THE GLADIOLUS. 



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the process will be gradual. When they are dried the old bulb 

 should be taken off, the stem removed, and the bulbs housed. 

 I take off the outer rough skin, and then write the name on 

 each bulb. This ensures correctness, a point on which all 

 florists are very careful. Some put them away in bags, but I 

 place mine in an open lattice-work frame, with drawers similarly 

 made, and take them into the house, where they are free from 

 frost and yet get air. 



I have already alluded to the very exhaustive lecture given on 

 this subject last year by Mr. Kelway. There are, however, one 

 or two points on which I must beg to differ from him. He does 

 not admit that it is a desirable thing to cut the bulbs. Now 

 this is a point on which, to use a homely phrase, the proof of the 

 pudding is in the eating. You have seen the beautiful stands of 

 flowers exhibited by Mr. Fowler. Now all these are from cut 

 bulbs, as were those exhibited by Mr. Lindsell and myself at the 

 Aquarium and Crystal Palace last year, and I think we might 

 challenge comparison with any exhibited from bulbs which were 

 not so treated. Another of Mr. Kelway's opinions was that the 

 French do not care for such closely set spikes as his own seedlings 

 manifest. Here again I appeal to facts, and not to opinions. 

 Compare some of the spikes shown to-day which are of French 

 origin with English-raised flowers, and I do not think that the 

 objection can be maintained. There is another point on which 

 he and I have for many years differed. Gladioli are very apt to 

 die off, and the root when examined is found to be thoroughly bad. 

 Mr. Kelway says this is not a disease, but arises from exhaustion. 

 Yes, but what causes the exhaustion ? During the progress of that 

 grievous malady, the influenza, many people died from exhaustion, 

 but it was the disease that caused it. So with the Gladiolus. We 

 lose our bulbs sometimes in very considerable numbers. There 

 seems to be no preventive, and certainly no cure, and we must only, 

 I suppose, "grin and bear it." We are happily free from one plague 

 from which the French growers suffer — the devastating " ver 

 blanc," the grub of the cockchafer. I remember that my dear old 

 friend M. Souchet once told me that he employed during the time 

 this fearful insect was abroad, sixty women and girls to pick them 

 up as they settled down on the earth to deposit their eggs, and that 

 bushels of them were every evening taken and destroyed. The 

 nearness to the Forest of Fontainebleau made them a perfect 



