INTRODUCTION 
The unprecedented lateness of this wonderfully beautiful season of 1938 
has forced me to be rather later with my catalogue than I generally hope to 
be, but I trust that I am in sufficient time for everyone interested in it ex¬ 
cepting those who wished to order when visiting the garden at blooming 
time. Although I am fortunate in having an exceptionally choice lot of 
things to offer, my booklet will as usual be a simple one, confining itself to 
as brief and truthful notes on the various subjects as I am able to compile, 
leaving sweeping superlatives and the all-too-often-misleading colored illus¬ 
trations to those who like that sort of thing, or who are perhaps better fitted 
by temperament to the promotion side of horticulture than I fear I can ever 
hope to be. 
I have been at particular pains to add a number of outstanding new daffo¬ 
dils to the list, especially certain selections from my large representation of 
the ever interesting and often unique creations of leading fanciers in Aus¬ 
tralia and New Zealand, offered so far as I know by no other grower on the 
American continent. These, due principally to the trying difficulties to be 
encountered in their importation and acclimatization, have been slow in re¬ 
ceiving the attention which is their just due. Not only are many of them 
among the sturdiest and strongest growing of daffodils, once they have de¬ 
cided to take hold, but some are among the greatest beauties that money can 
buy. Those who saw my large exhibit at the 1938 National Orange Show 7 in 
San Bernardino will recall the furore which certain of these flowers caused 
there, as well as the generous, unsolicited admiration expressed by a leading 
garden commentator via the radio. 
To my iris list no less than eight promising novelties of my own raising 
are added. This is a greater number than I generally approve of naming 
and offering in any one year, but I believe every one of these to be worth 
while, while from their parentage my expectation is that all except December 
Joy should prove reasonably hardy almost anywhere in the country. In addi¬ 
tion to these I am happy to be able to offer three exceptionally lovely irises 
wdiich are the product of other hybridizers. One of these is Mr. J. N. Girid- 
lian’s winsome Nada, which he generously permitted me to handle for him 
last year, although my catalogue chanced to go to the printer just too early 
to include it. Mrs. Nancy Shank of Corona, is relatively a newcomer to the 
list of iris breeders, but her infinite care and study in planning her pollina¬ 
tions is already bearing fruit in some unusual and rarely beautiful seedlings, 
the first two of which to be named it now becomes my privilege to include. 
I have taken advantage of the best flowering season in some years further 
to cull the list of older varieties, and I think greatly to improve both list and 
garden in the process. It is a policy of a good many dealers to offer at nomi¬ 
nal prices their stocks of varieties which they would otherwise discard, in¬ 
termingled with a scattering of tempters of a better grade to help sell the 
whole. At first sight it looks like a grand bargain offer and a pretty good 
thing all around; yet after all I wonder whether it is not instead a rather 
serious mistake, in the long run working injury to both the breeder work¬ 
ing for better things and to the purchaser, and this for two reasons. In 
the first place, the merely good, in gardens as in books and pictures and life, 
is ever the enemy of the best. The inevitable tendency must be to fill up 
our limited space with plants which are now outclassed, some of them indeed 
outclassed at the very moment of their introduction, while better things and 
better “buys” are pushed to one side. Secondly, why should I, for one, con¬ 
tinue to sell to others goods which I would not, at any price, wish to pur¬ 
chase for myself? Surely an iris, even a cheap one, if worth anything is 
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