iums should not have. Our summers are too long and too warm. In 
recent years the rainfall has been too scanty. The soil is abominable, 
being too shallow and too heavy; so much so that despite large applica¬ 
tions of manure, peat-moss, sand and ashes, it still bakes, and cakes, and 
cracks. Under such conditions good delphiniums become poor del¬ 
phiniums. This season the drought began early in the spring and con¬ 
tinued into the summer. Many of our choice delphiniums of last year 
began to look like common things; and because they could not ‘ ‘ take it, ’ ’ 
they are being dug up and destroyed. We do not want fair-weather 
delphiniums but the sorts that will perform well under good conditions 
or bad. This means that a variety that gives a satisfactory account for 
itself under the conditions of Morgantown, W. Va., will perform much 
better in more favorably situated gardens. From time to time we have 
customers visit us, and it is not at all uncommon for them to say some 
such thing as this: ‘ ‘ Why, the plants I raised from your seeds are even 
better than yours!” We are happy to have our customers beat us. 
But the pleasing thing about it is that they keep on buying seeds from 
us! They realize that the survival and the selection of the fittest is 
best accomplished under harsher environmental conditions, whereas the 
ideal soil and climate may tend to make a scrub look like an aristocrat. 
Therefore, our handicap is also our advantage, as well as that of our 
customers. 
And finally there is another reason: ours is a very small ‘ ‘ business, ’ ’ 
in fact, it is very little more than a self-supporting hobby. We have 
only a limited time to devote to breeding, consequently seed production 
is small and seed plants very few. We can afford to be heartlessly rigid 
about the selection of our seed parents. This year, for instance, some 
ten thousand young seedlings were planted, but we do not expect to 
select more than one per cent of this, and after a year’s trial this may 
come down to a mere dozen, yet sufficient to give us all the seed that we 
can produce and sell. Such a severe selecting process insures a higher 
quality of seed parents. But if we were to produce seeds by the pound, 
we would use everything that looked half way decent and the result 
would be the kind of worthless seed that is now flooding the market. 
Our scheme of breeding does not permit of quantity production of 
seeds. Our customers increase but the seed production remains about 
the same. Therefore, we can afford to pick and choose our customers, 
and we again urge that all those who have had no experience with del¬ 
phinium, leave us alone until they have cut their delphinium teeth on 
the other fellow’s seeds and seedlings. 
SEED OFFERINGS FOR 1934 
(Only semi-double and double flowers used in our crosses) 
Once again we have discarded nearly all of last year’s breeding 
stock in favor of newer and more superior things. We omit a detailed 
description of the different varieties used in order to save space. We 
have also discontinued assorted crosses because we cannot produce 
enough seed to go around and also because we are thoroughly convinced 
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