As the stock of a variety increases the price comes down. If a variety is a 
very good propagator the price may drop fast or if it is rather slow and the demand 
is good the price may hold up well for several years. Or in some cases has been 
known to go up two or three years after introduction. 
Thus it will be seen that a cheap variety may be just as good as a high priced 
one though I think no hybridizer intentionally puts out a new variety unless he 
considers it an improvement over older varieties of its color or class. 
A Classic 
The following paragraph describing the various stages of gladiolus growing 
has attracted so much attention and been quoted so many times that I am re¬ 
peating it again. 
There is a fascination about growing glads that becomes a hobby, then a 
craze. There are five stages of interest in growing “glads.” First you just grow 
them as an amateur, same as you would any other flower. Then as your interest 
in them increases you become a “fan,” then a “bug,” then a “nut,” then finally a 
“fiend.” When you reach this final stage you are hopeless. You think of “glads” all 
day, dream of them at night, spend every available minute of your time in the 
garden, talk of them, visit the shows, read all the catalogs and spend all your money 
on them. You will look lovingly at the last flower in the fall, will handle over your 
bulbs in the winter time and will hardly be able to wait till you can lovingly plant 
the bulbs in the spring. From then till the first bloom appears is a period of happy 
anticipation. When finally the spikes of bloom begin to appear you are in heaven. 
Culture oS Glads 
With every order I send^out, a four page circular goes with the bulbs which 
gives all the essential points in raising them. If you want to go into it deeper 
would suggest that you get a book on gladiolus. A good one is “The Gladiolus” 
by Rockwell which I can furnish for $1.35. Or on a $12. order accompanied by 
cash I will give a copy of this book free if you ask for it. 
Glads are like anything else. The better culture you give them the better 
they will be. There is an immense amount of difference between glads that are 
just stuck in the ground and left to shift for themselves through wet weather and 
dry and those that are planted on carefully prepared ground and given plenty of 
fertilizer and water and staked up if necessary. A few varieties do need staking. 
I want to especially mention preparing the ground deeply. A foot deep is 
none too deep and even deeper will be better especially if you aren’t able to water 
them during the growing season. Water is very important. Though the glads will 
not stand poor drainage, or wet feet as we call it, they will take a large amount 
of water from the time the bloom spikes begin to shoot up provided the drainage 
is good so the ground does not become stagnant. 
Though glads like plenty of fertilizer they don’t want too much. A good 
coating of rotted cow manure in the fall, or if not possible then in the spring, is 
ideal but spade it in deeply. Then you can put Acid Phosphate in the trench 
when you plant them and put on two or three applications of a mixed commercial 
fertilizer during the growing season. Some people have written me that they put 
on a very heavy coating of manure in the fall and then again in the spring and 
mixed a lot of fertilizer with it too. This is too much. Too much animal manure 
is liable to cause disease on the bulbs. 
Storing Glads 
Gladiolus bulbs should be stored at a temperature under forty degrees if 
possible. Stored at a temperature of forty or less there will be no thrip on them 
in the spring no matter how badly infested they are in the fall. Then again they 
will keep better and there will be no shriveling and shrinkage if kept cool. 
I have just learned of a new wrinkle for storing bulbs that will be valuable 
for those who do not have cool cellars and cannot possibly keep them below fifty 
or sixty degrees. In a recent bulletin, put out by the Ohio Experiment Station 
at Wooster, Ohio, it states that the bulbs can be kept successfully in a box buried 
in the ground. Of course the box would have to be either water tight or so ar¬ 
ranged that there would be good drainage under the box and tarred paper or 
something put over it so that the water wouldn’t leak into it. They can be kept 
cool in this way. Of course in a cold climate it would have to be covered up enough 
so that it wouldn’t freeze. Think there are distinct possibilities in this way of 
storage for people who have hot cellars and no other place to store their bulbs. 
