dreamed of making it into a flower bed, 
but in dreaming, did not think too much 
about the difficulties. 
As an amateur, I had a large collection 
of Gladioli, many of them my own hy- 
bridizing, and knowing the possibilities 
of the flower, I decided to enter the cut- 
flower market. To do this, there were 
many obstacles to be met. There was 
less than one-half acre of ground under 
cultivation and more ground had to be 
developed at once, as well as more bulbs 
purchased. My interest in the Gladiolus 
had been greatly increased through the 
influence of my uncle, Mr. Justin Pond, 
now deceased. His gift of many hun- 
dreds of his finest seedlings, (the product 
of his own hybridizing, for the Gladio- 
lus was his hobby), the purchase of many 
thousands of the best varieties obtain- 
able, and my own small collection, gave 
me the nucleus from which the present 
stock of Cedar Acres Gladioli has grown. 
The quality of bloom produced soon 
brought the demand for my bulbs far 
beyond my expectations. 
Following this, came the question of 
storage. A small building, one of the 
typical little New England shoe-shops, 
was moved back and a storage cellar 
built under it, with a capacity of 800 
bushels. Ridicule at the idea, that I 
might ever expect to fill this, was the en- 
couragement from friends. But I was 
soon forced to remodel the large barn, 
turning it into a bulb house with a storage 
capacity of 5000 bushels, and offices 
and packing rooms. Each year has 
seen the development of more land, which 
as soon as ready, has been planted to 
