(A “rouge” is some other variety accidentally mixed with your bulbs while handling, while 
a “sport” is a color change taking place in a variety. As a rule it is to all purposes the 
same variety as the others, but its changed color makes it appear like some other variety, 
and such it becomes in fact unless it “reverts” back to the original color the next season 
which a certain percent of all Sports do.) 
Sports are common among many kinds of plants and trees; sometimes they originate 
where only a part of the plant sports, but where propagation may be secured from the 
changed buds or bud wood. I can cite a very well known apple which originated from the 
bud wood where only one limb of the original tree sported. We may also mention the 
varigated form of Yucca and many other plants. As a general rule, in our tests, where 
only a part of a blossom changes color, such “sporting” is but temporary and will likely 
prove true the next season, but where the color change is complete, the largest number of 
such “Sports” remain like the new color, and all of the increase comes true to the changed 
color, so far as coloring is concerned, we have a distinctly different colored Glad. In some 
instances about 10% to 20% of all complete Sports also revert back to the original the next 
season, but if they remain true to the new color two seasons, that color has as a rule 
become well established. 
Many permanent color changes are very slight and are often thought to be due to 
weather conditions or to fertilizers, but are really permanent changes. Many of you have 
perhaps noticed this in the stock of some of the older varieties. I have noticed this in 
many varieties, from many different sources. You can see this in Crimson Glow, Early 
Sunrise, Dr. Norton and many others. They could be selected as to shade and would 
prove more or less that way. I remember one year I gave one bulb of Mrs. F. C. H. to a 
local man. This one plant had some of the pink tinting that you often see in a small per¬ 
cent of all white varieties under certain climatic conditions, yet in all other respects it was 
an identical plant of Mrs. F. C. Hornberger but this one plant and all of its increases of 
several years, continued to produce these same badly discolored bloom, instead of the clear 
white flowers for which Mrs. F. C. H. is noted, in all other respects the plant was identical 
with the original stock. 
The great value of careful selection of Gladiolus must be evident to all. Seed grow¬ 
ers pay much attention to selection of true to type plants, as they understand this varia¬ 
bility in plant life, and know that rigid selection is the only method that will most nearly 
retain the true characteristics of the original plant. We must not regard the coloring of 
Glads or other plants as “set” or “fixed”. It is more or less “variable” at all times. Color 
may fade out and become much lighter, which it does in most changes, but it may also 
become deeper or cause other organic changes that may become enough “fixed” as to 
become a new variety. Extremes of weather and temperature, chemicals and fertilizers 
and other factors influence this “variability”. In most cases, this disturbance of coloring is 
only a temporary feature, but in many instances it becomes permanent, and so becomes a 
“Sport”. This Sport may be completely different in coloring, or where the color change 
is slight, it may only assume a slightly different shade of the same coloring, or perhaps 
only certain throat or other markings are changed and the general color remains the same. 
Some varieties are much more subject to this “trait” or “fault” than others. Among 
some varieties there is seldom if ever a sport; among other varieties it is of quite frequent 
occurrence, among them being Paul Pfitzer. We estimate that a complete color change, 
or a plant that changes its color in a radical way and remains that way, will be found, 
averaging all our varieties, about ten or more plants to each million bulbs grown each 
year. But if we selected only the most “variable” varieties, and took our average from 
these alone, perhaps we might say there would be a color change or sport to each ten to 
twenty thousand bulbs grown each year. I think it safe to say that the variety Paul 
Pfitzer has produced for us about one Sport to each 2000 large bulbs produced; and to 
make sure this is a “trait” of that variety and not some fault of our original stock, we 
have bought many different lots of Paul Pfitzer from the best known and most highly 
regarded growers in this country. They all act the same way. 
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