100 
Z5b)<i Slower (Brower 
October, 1919 
WAYSIDE RAMBLINGS 
MIXING THE VARIETIES. 
Last year a party ot us motored up 
to Mr. Kunderd’s place at Goshen and 
that gentleman spent about three hours 
of his valuable time escorting us 
through his extensive Gladiolus fields. 
Two or three times he nearly broke the 
ladies’ hearts by pulling up a plant by 
the roots. They couldn’t understand 
why the sacrifice, but his keen eye had 
discovered a variety where it didn’t be- 
long and he took the shortest and 
quickest way to get rid of it. 
We little growers can’t screw up our 
courage to the point of pulling up a 
plant. We have a few mixtures in our 
rows and as fast as they show up we 
tag the stragglers and will separate 
them at digging time, but we just can’t 
bear to destroy a corm, even if it is out 
of place. 
Great care to avoid mixing has been 
practiced in our patch, but, unfortu- 
nately, we have to use the same ground 
each year ; some of the corms are 
bound to be missed in digging, and if 
they come up in one of the new rows, 
they can only be found at blooming 
time. 
Of course, the greatest danger of 
mixing that confronts the big grower 
is in the carelessness of his help. The 
wife of a local grower (for the flower 
market) bragged to us the other day 
that her husband never needed to label 
his varieties as he could tell the corms 
apart by their appearance. It is my 
personal opinion that the man who can 
do that, with any number of varieties 
to speak of, is wasting his time grow- 
ing Gladioli. “ They ain’t no sich 
animile.” At first I was able to dis- 
tinguish some of my varieties by the 
colors of the corms, but now that I 
have some seventy varieties, I think 
there are many duplicates in colors of 
corms. 
We are just raising Glads for the fun 
of it (though we sell a few blooms) and 
take special pains to keep the varie- 
ties separate. The old man digs them 
all himself, cuts the tops off short and 
washes the corms in a riddle. The 
corms are put in a box with a label, 
left out of doors until they quit dripping 
and are then taken to the attic. At 
the end of two or three weeks they are 
ready to be cleaned up and stored for 
the winter. Each variety is worked sep- 
arately and a record made of the crop 
by sizes. When spring comes it is 
comparatively easy to plan to plant the 
crop so as to get the desired effects. 
From the time they are dug the tag 
stays with the lot and is finally at- 
tached to the receptacle which holds it 
all winter . 
Last year (with about 50 varieties) 
we lost 55 Canary Birds which we feared 
had been mixed with the Mrs. Francis 
Kings. We really had more Kings than 
we wanted, but didn’t dare part with 
any of them as we didn’t want to lose 
the Canary Bird stock. The only thing 
was to plant them, It developed that 
the Canary Bird corms were all in one 
package, but labeled wrong. 
When the corms go to our attic they 
are dumped out of the boxes and 
spread on papers on the floor and the 
attic is taboo for the children until the 
Glad crop is out of the way. When the 
fall evenings grow long and there is a 
nip of frost in the air, we put in many a 
pleasant hour cleaning up, labeling and 
storing away the Glad corms, while we 
dream and plan for the next summer. 
Harmon W. Marsh. 
MY EXPERIENCE WITH LATE PLANTING 
OF GLADIOLUS CORMS. 
Owing to a prolonged cold and rainy 
spell of weather during the spring of 
1919 my Gladioli were not planted till 
late. As a consequence a great num- 
ber of the corms had sprouted, some 
showing sprouts two or more inches 
long. Many of these sprouts were 
pressed flat to the corm. After plant- 
ing and trying to allow for the unnatu- 
ral position of the sprouts by planting 
the corms on side, I hoped that sprouts 
would come up. Needless to say, in a 
great number of cases they did not do 
so. In fact I found it necessary to re- 
move the soil above the corm, uncurl 
the sprout and hold it in position while 
restoring the soil. At this time I found 
some of the sprouts curled and balled, 
some even rotting and some appeared 
to be growing downward. Where the 
sprouts were rotting, the rot had taken 
hold of the corm. 
It does not necessarily follow that 
these conditions hold in case of late 
planting every spring. I believe that 
our spring this year was very un- 
natural. Too much rain and too cool 
at the start and then suddenly very 
hot. I believe it was this that caused 
such long sprouts to appear on my 
corms. In any event I believe it is to 
the advantage of the corm as well as 
the grower to get his planting done as 
early as possible. 
Chas. E. F. Gersdorff. 
(District Columbia.) 
SPORTING OF WILBRINCK. 
I am enclosing a petal of a single 
bloom of the variety Gladiolus Wil- 
brinck, supposed to be a “sport” of 
Halley, which it resembles in every 
way except in color of bloom, which is 
the color of America. 
As you will note the petal I am en- 
closing is a “color sport”, just a single 
blotch of the color of Halley, it would 
seem to indicate that the color of Wil- 
brinck is not wholly stable. 
Would like to know if any of the 
readers of The Flower Grower have 
had similar experience with this va- 
riety. This single bloom is the only 
variation of color I have noted in this 
variety. 
Fred C. Hornberger. 
DIVIDING AND PEELING GLADIOLUS 
CORMS BEFORE PLANTING. 
I see by the September issue of The 
Flower Grower that “ F. B. C.” 
(Mass.), has read the article on “Divid- 
ing Corms Before Planting,” on page 
78, August number, of The Flower 
Grower, and will use his pocket knife 
on such corms that perhaps do not 
multiply satisfactorily hereafter. But 
I hope he won’t make the mistake that 
I did this year and cut his corms up 
before he is ready to plant them just 
because he has an idle spell. My ex- 
perience in this matter cost me one of 
Stalnaker’s “Carnival of Colors” col- 
lections and also one of his “Blue Col- 
lections.” 
At the time I divided them I intended 
to plant them the next day but a heavy 
rain intervened and it was nearly two 
weeks before the ground got in work- 
able condition. About a week afttr I 
had cut them up, I poured them out of 
their paper sacks and found them 
moulding, so I scattered them out on 
the floor and in a few days I found 
them drying nicely, in fact they were 
so nicely dried that I was tempted to i 
throw them away and that is just what 
I should have done. About one-half of 
them came up but began to die by the . 
time they were two weeks old. I got 
seven blooms out of the two collec- I ! 
tions and may dig twenty small corms • 
that may bloom next year. 
Last year I lost a lot of perfectly fine 
cormlets by peeling them before I was 
ready to plant them. They went the 
rotten route. 
I also ruined about 200 of my largest 
corms that I had selected on account j 
of their size and dormant condition to 
plant about July first for late bloomers 
by peeling off the rough shuck — wanted 
to have them ready to plant, you see. 
When planting time finally came 
around I found those elegant corms 
so dried and shrunken that only a few 
of them grew at all. Evidently nature 
put that heavy shuck on just to keep 
them from drying out during their 
dormant period. 
Why don’t some of the big growers 
tell us little fellows and new beginners, 
through The Flower Grower, some 
of their failures so we can steer our 
boat accordingly ? 
Peel your corms and put the knife to 
them, brother “B. F. C,” but don’t do : 
it until you are ready to put them in 
the ground. T. B. Tippett. 
SIBERIAN IRIS. 
The Siberian Iris should be more 
widely planted. As a plant it is orna- 
mental, hardy, rapid in growth and in- 
crease, easily established, profuse in 
bloom. As a cut flower its strong 
stems, aristocratic bearing and decora- 
tive style make it ideal. In color its 
blues and purples are equaled by no 
other cut flower but the violet. Its cut 
blooms can stand in water all day out- 
doors in blazing sun and scorching 
wind without wilting, this making 
them especially useful for cemetery 
decoration. Blooming season is with 
the Peony, following the German Iris. 
B. C. Auten. 
