F. C. Hornberger, Home and Garden Service 
3 
lar cultural methods to be followed in 
the production of exhibition bloom. 
I have been growing what I consider 
Palmer’s best productions, but I have 
never been able to grow any of them as 
they have been shown on exhibition. I 
mean when I grow them under ordinary 
field culture without irrigation, or other 
seed bed aids. I consider Picardy head 
and shoulders above any other Palmer 
variety; it is one variety that we have 
found to give wonderful results under all 
kinds of soil and climatic conditions. 
Picardy built Palmer’s reputation as an 
originator, I have not found any of his 
other seedlings that in any way approach 
Picardy. All the others appear to be an 
average run of good seedling varieties, 
but not as outstanding as our high pres- 
sure advertisers try to make them appear. 
I think it can be truly said, that prac- 
tically every originator has been made 
popular by one or two very outstanding 
varieties, the rest for the most part are 
just a choice selection of good seedlings. 
If you will try to think back only ten 
years, how many promised world Won' 
ders can you remember? How many 
have materialised? If you will refer to 
the National Symposium for 1933 , that 
is the vote of all the leading growers, 
from coast to coast, averaging all kinds 
of soils, climate and conditions, you will 
find that it took TWENTY'FOUR 
ORIGINATORS to produce the FIFTY 
varieties that received the highest num¬ 
ber of votes of approval as the fifty best 
varieties; each originator having one or 
more variety to his or her credit. 
We have varieties that perform well 
only under irrigation conditions, some do 
well in one section of the country and 
not in another section, but the same is 
true of nearly all kinds of plants. Some 
Glads can stand drought and do well 
under very dry conditions, giving good 
performance where many others fail (ex' 
ample, Betty Nuthall). Still others 
have nearly every good quality, but can- 
not resist drought or adverse conditions 
(example, Mrs. P. W. Sisson). Then 
again there are varieties that are excep- 
tional in most things, but propagate so 
slowly that only irrigation growers can 
secure any particular increase (example, 
Frederick Christ). I do not mean that 
the varieties I have mentioned are the 
only ones having these traits, there are 
many that belong to each group, I merely 
cite a few well known varieties. Short 
stemmed varieties, like Diener’s Ameri¬ 
can Beauty, J. A. Carbone, Pfitzer’s 
Purest of All, and scores of others are 
practically worthless without irrigation 
except in rare cases of wonderful soil 
conditions. I know a man near Syracuse 
that has such ideal soil he tells me that 
under his conditions these varieties come 
tall enough to make them salable as cut 
flowers. 
Our many Glad shows and exhibitions 
are very desirable, and I have always 
supported them; they are educational, 
they show us the improvements going 
on, and what can be done in the way of 
growing flowers to mammoth size, but 
they do HIDE many things from the 
novice and the amateur gardener. Let 
us take a very recent, high priced intro¬ 
duction, SOLVEIG. It was shown on 
exhibition, grown at its best, received 
high awards and honors, advertised to 
the limit and praised to the skies, the 
men who invest heavy in new varieties 
(men who are equipped to increase stock 
rapidly) purchased to the limit of their 
finances; they will not tell you all its 
faults, in fact few of them mention its 
weakness, as some of them say they must 
get their money back, but who do you 
think is left HOLDING THE BAG? If 
you will refer to my old catalogs, you 
will notice I give my honest opinion of 
Solveig, and how it has performed for 
me. As I have grown it as long as other 
growers, three seasons, I have had time 
to form a fair opinion of the variety, and 
the man who introduced it published 
Prestgaards story of how it originated, 
and you do not have to be a plant 
breeder, to understand that the mating 
of such a weak type, that gradually 
“petered out” could not result in strong 
growing seedlings of the best character¬ 
istics, constitution and habits. But men 
are not breeding for good qualities to- 
