14 
Hornberger’s Home and Garden Service 
PROGRESSIVE—NOMENCLATURE 
OR A SYSTEM OF UTILITY RATING AND CLASSIFICATION FOR THE 
EASTERN NON-IRRIGATION GROWER, 
We here attempt to furnish eastern florists, wholesale flower growers and 
bulb growers, and others with a simple system of classifying all Glads, 
in particular the new ones that are highly advertised. I think of first 
importance is propagation; we have divided all known varieties into six 
groups or classes, and will indicate them as: (Prop. A 1) (Prop. A) (Prop. 
B). These three classes will represent the extra good, the good and the 
moderately good. On the declining side we will have (Prop. C) (Prop. D) 
and (Prop. E). These three last groups flower growers and florists must approach 
with caution, while the non-irrigation bulb grower can grow them proportionately 
to the conditions of natural environment. 
In this simple system of rating, we will not use the term decorative, as all Glads 
can come within this term. We will take next the term “commercial”, but use it a 
little differently than generally used. Here we will use these three symbols, as 
(Com. F. C. 1) (Com. F. C. 2) and (Com.). F. C. indicates florists’ color, so (Com. 
F. C. 1) stands for a commercial florists variety having the very best colors for florists 
use, while (Com. F. C. 2) will indicate commercial varieties where the colors are not 
so desirable for all kinds of floral work, although largely used. All other so called 
commercials we will indicate by this symbol; (Com.) These represent colors much 
more difficult to use in the florists business, although many of them can be used to 
advantage at times, and when combined with good exhibition quality are desirable for 
the bulb trade, in particular if good or fair propagators. 
We do not generally recommend (Propagators C) for the general use of Florists 
and grawers because of slow, difficult propagation. However, if you have very good 
soil conditions for bulblet propagation, this group may be useful, particularly in the 
case of very fine colors or other qualities. So we will classify them as (Com. F.C. 1) 
where colors permit. We do not recommend the use of (Prop. D) or (Prop. E) for 
any except the retail bulb trade. 
Flowering dates are very difficult to give, about the best we can do is indicate 
as extra early, early, midseason and late, but this season we will continue to indicate 
flowering dates by numbers as we did last season. 7 0-7 5 will indicate 7 0 to 7 5 
days for size No. 1 bulb to flower when planted at a date for favorable growth. Many 
other factors advance or retard flowering dates, as fumigants, dips, temperature of 
storage rooms, etc. As a general rule size No. 3 will flower about ten days later than 
size No. 1 of the same variety. 
Spike or stem will be indicated by the words; Tall, Med. and Short. Tall will 
be varieties like Aflame, Bagdad, Douglass and Phipps; while Medium as Dr. Bennett, 
Mrs. F. C. Hornberger, Dr. Moody, etc. Short varieties are represented by Virginia, 
Albania, etc. and are varieties that tend to have very short spikes even from larger 
bulbs, and need very good conditions to give worthwhile spikes to meet present day 
requirements. In the case of Virginia, this has been such an outstanding forcer and 
early that it has been very extensively grown. At the present time the demand is 
for varieties that can produce the largest number of grade No. 1 spikes, with a 
minimum of bent spikes, and “shorts” that can not be used, to advantage or if used 
at all must be sold at a very low price. 
For exhibition merit we will use; (Exhib. A) and (Exhib. B) “A” for the very 
exceptional, or varieties that have proven very outstanding as exhibition varieties, 
and “B” for class No. 2, good but not so sensational as “A” class. There will be 
many that we will not classify as exhibition that will prove good subjects when 
grown under exceptional conditions. It must be remembered that even quite ordinary 
Glads often assume exhibition quality when grown under ideal soil conditions. For 
this reason we only classify as exhibition such varieties that are able to develop 
exhibition quality under the ordinary 50% to 60% average soil conditions, as com¬ 
pared with results from 100% seed beds, and special culture. 
Pronounced faults will be considered with the descriptive matter as weii as 
disease, etc. but the latter subject will be found under “Diseases” on another page. 
STUDY THE FOLLOWING TABLE OF SYMBOLS: AS USED WITH OUR 
DESCRIPTIONS TO DETERMINE THE RATING FOR UTILITY AND OTHER 
QUALITIES. 
