no 
(Brower 
November, 1919 
flowers of standard perfection. There 
is no better sale for poor flowers than 
for poor apples or potatoes. The fact 
of such high prices proves the demand 
for fine flowers. There are times when 
every one who can possibly do it must 
have cut flowers ; and those who can 
afford the luxuries of life must always 
have them, just as they must and will 
have fine linen, fine furniture, and fine 
pictures. Every woman with the home- 
making instinct wants some flower 
pots and some blooming things around 
her ; and every man with the homing 
heart and a proper pride of possession 
wants decorative plants and bright 
flower beds around. Every place that 
reaches the dignity of an estate must 
have decorated grounds, and the ar- 
tistic spirit expresses itself as often in 
the growing of Roses as in the develop- 
ing of fine architectural effects. 
The number of plants that can be 
grown in a small space would astonish 
one who has never counted them. In 
a bed four feet by two at least one 
hundred and twenty-eight Roses can be 
rooted in three inch pots, and be worth, 
at the end of one year, about $12.80. 
At this rate, on one acre of land enough 
Roses could be conveniently grown to 
bring about $3,500. A bed of equal 
size planted in Chrysanthemums will 
produce flowers worth $4 ; and enough 
plants will come from the roots next 
spring, without additional care or culti- 
vation, to be worth as much, or even 
more. There are several perennials 
that will produce three or four dozen 
plants to the square foot of soil, and 
many more small annuals can be grown 
from seed in an equal space. These 
figures presuppose most careful cul- 
ture, for flowers are very human in 
that they give their best only in re- 
sponse to the best care. 
This work of making the co-opera- 
tive growing of flowers and plants 
profitable could be accomplished thro’ 
the ordinary club organization, with a 
paid secretary-treasurer who could give 
all her time to the work and keep a 
complete record of sales and collec- 
tions. The number of members would 
probably limit itself according to local 
conditions, or it might be limited to 
suit the convenience of the club. The 
work could be easily arranged to suit 
the taste and the opportunities of the 
members. One woman might make a 
specialty of Roses— in fact, a dozen 
members could devote their attention 
to the many and various personifica- 
tions of the “Garden Queen.” Another 
member might prefer to grow Lilies, 
another Violets, and another shrubs. 
Some one with a greenhouse could 
furnish all customers with Ferns ; an- 
other, of equally fortunate possession, 
could study to grow those flowers espe- 
cially suited for funeral offerings. The 
growing of annuals and saving of seed 
could profitably occupy the attention 
of several members. Those women 
with most time and energy could 
amuse themselves by trying to see how 
many varieties of Chrysanthemums 
they could gather into one garden and 
how large they could make them grow. 
Every one of a hundred flower lovers 
could find work to suit her taste in an 
active, well organized flower growers’ 
association, and reap a reward in exact 
proportion to the amount of her work 
and to the skill with which she does it. 
The business part of such an organ- 
ization would call for careful attention. 
The packing, shipping and marketing 
of plants would have to be done in a 
skilful, business-like way. This would 
have to be learned by officers and 
members, just as truck and fruit grow- 
ers must master the details of their 
work. 
The benefits of a successful associa- 
tion of this kind would soon write 
themselves plainly over the whole com- 
munity. Their first expression would 
be beauty — beauty everywhere. Beauty 
is a response to some fine psychic de- 
mand, and its effect is always uplifting. 
The thoughts of a flower growing com- 
munity would be drawn away from 
inferior things and fixed actively on 
beauty production, with all its attend- 
ant good. 
Another benefit a flower club would 
bestow on its people would be a gen- 
eral feeling of prosperity with its ac- 
companying rise in personality. There 
would be seen more of the things that 
minister to the needs of life, to its com- 
forts, and to its luxuries ; a little more 
independence in the people around ; 
and more contentment in every face. 
Among all members and workers 
would be seen the spirit and the power 
that come from the absolutely ethical 
condition of happy work to a good 
purpose. 
The influence of a floral club will 
not stop with its uplifting power in its 
own community, but will go with every 
plant and flower it sends out. Every 
plant, every package of seed, if its 
mission does not fail, is going to carry 
beauty and brightness to some little 
corner. Every bunch of flowers is go- 
ing to carry good cheer to whoever 
receives it, and to express love and 
sympathy where nothing else could do 
it so well. Surely an effort that calls 
only for pleasure and brings only good 
is worth while — an effort that shows 
forth Nature’s most artistic handiwork 
as a symbol of the love and joy that 
runs through the whole of creation. 
Do We Make the Most 
of Our Gladiolus Gardens ? 
[Written expressly ftr The Flower Grower. ] 
I suppose the great majority of peo- 
ple would, without hesitation answer 
“Yes,” to that question, and be per- 
fectly sincere in doing so, but it seems 
to me there is one way of making use 
of those gardens of ours which is, with 
the average amateur, a thing of mys- 
tery, to be indulged in only by profes- 
sional growers. Let me ask the question 
to bring out the point. 
Have you, brother or sister amateur, 
ever experienced the pleasure of watch- 
ing the development and growth of a 
flower you could claim, not by right 
of purchase, but of evolution, as your 
“ very own ?” If not, you have missed 
one of the great pleasures of garden- 
ing, and are closing to yourself the 
gate to the inner shrine. 
Three summers ago I decided I would 
make an attempt at hybridizing Gladi- 
oli. What I did not know about the 
subject would fill several books, but 
other fellows had turned the trick, so 
why not I ? This summer the first of 
my seedlings bloomed. To be sure, 
they are not what my small nephew 
would call “ Humdingers,” but they 
are like no other stock in my garden 
or anywhere else that I have seen, and 
they are “ mine,” in a sense, none of 
the others are. 
Are they worth the waiting for? I 
think so. I will admit I was rather 
disgusted when I dug the corms last 
fall. The largest were about the size 
of a fair sized filbert nut, and I looked 
forward to another year of waiting, 
but here are some of the results : 
No. 1. — Flower, good form, inches 
across the bloom, color, deep lavender, 
shading to cream in the throat, pale 
yellow blotch on the lower petals, 
blotch pencilled carmine. Baron Hu- 
lot, crossed on America. 
No. 3.— Flower nearly four inches 
across ; color, dark red ; pencilled with 
a rich cream on the lower petals. The 
lower petals also bore down the cen- 
ter a narrow tongue of scarlet, and 
there was just a suggestion of purple 
in the throat. Baron Hulot crossed on 
Faust. 
No. 4. — Dark rosy cerise ; flower 3| 
inches across ; lower petals bearing a 
blotch of very pale yellow veined with 
carmine. Baron Hulot crossed on Mrs. 
Francis King. 
No. 7.— Flower, four inches across ; 
color mauve with just a tint of pink, 
shading to purple in the throat, very 
strong grower, making a strong, , 
straight spike, bearing, even from so 
small a corm, 14 buds, all of which 
bloomed. Baron Hulot crossed on 
A merica. 
Four others have bloomed, the flow- 
ers being smaller ; a cream, a pink 
with purple stripes on the lip, a rich 
rose with purple markings, and a royal 
purple, shape and substance of Baron 
Hulot, the male parent, and the same 
faint stripe down the center of each 
petal. 
There are many others still to bloom, 
but had I got none but the one I have 
designated “No. 7,” I would count the 
time well spent, and the reward suf- 
ficient. I have not had exceptionally 
good ground to work with, neither 
have I spent a large amount of time on 
them. The folks tell me I am as proud 
of my seedlings as the average man is 
of his first child. Maybe it is foolish, 
but they are mine, and they have 
meant that I have got out of my gar- 
den what the average amateur never 
gets. 
This is just a hint. Why don’t you 
try too ? 
Geo. D. Murray. 
An error crept into our report in the 
October issue of the American Gladi- 
olus Society’s flower show held at De- 
troit in August. First prize for twenty 
varieties, three spikes each, was won 
by C. Zeestraten, Bemus Point, N. Y., 
and not by United Bulb Company as 
stated. 
