GUIDEBOOK FOR 1939 
Page 31 
LEAD YOUR FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS 
— HOW TO DO IT 
Simple as can be. Inexpensive, too. Plant 
healthy, young bulbs of the large size of 
varieties currently winning first prizes in the 
major shows of the world. Soil prepared in 
the fall with heavy applications of well rotted 
cow manure and bone meal is excellent. Avoid 
horse manure in any season. Plant in the sun¬ 
niest location possible. Shelter from strong 
winds is desirable. Preferably in a group 
planting by themselves. 
Do not make them compete with other 
roots of trees, shrubs or weeds. Cultivate 
often and close, keeping surface loose. If the 
garden plot was not fertilized the previous 
fall with a slow acting fertilizer apply none 
whatever until plants are six to eight inches 
high. Use then and every few weeks there¬ 
after until blooming, if you wish, any quick 
acting fertilizer with approximately “4-12-4” 
per cent of content of nitrogen, phosphate 
and potash, respectively. Sprinkle it spar¬ 
ingly (a handful to 25 or more bulbs), several 
inches away from the plants. Scratch it in 
and soak to saturation. If you wish, when 
the buds first emerge from the foliage, substi¬ 
tute a few similar dressings of dried blood or 
a single similar dressing of ammonium sul¬ 
phate. Soak the ground heavily the day be¬ 
fore so that the plant will be saturated and in 
strong growing condition, thus withstanding 
a shock which might otherwise burn off the 
rootlets, turn the foliage yellow and stop 
further growth. 
Particularly in hot weather, spikes which 
are cut when but one or two florets are open, 
fill out with more open at a time when bloom¬ 
ed indoors in the light but not sunlight, away 
from any breeze, making better exhibition 
spikes and preventing any fading of color such 
as is sometimes found in some of the finest 
orange scarlets, as well as preventing wilting 
of varieties without strong substance. Cut 
stem slantwise to provide larger drinking area 
and place in water at once to avoid air pockets 
in stem. Allow three or four leaves to remain 
on the plant to mature the new bulb which is 
hardly half grown when spike is cut. At least 
six more weeks are needed to mature the bulb, 
except where blooms are from large bulbs of 
very late sorts, or where blooms arrive at 
late season from young planting stock. 
DON’TS ON DIGGING 
Do not leave part of stem on bulb, cut 
close and burn the tops. 
Do not leave bulbs to dry where frosts can 
reach. 
Do not pile deeply. Quick drying (not in 
hot sunlight) is extremely important to pre¬ 
vent spread of diseases in storage. 
Do not remove roots and old bulb for some 
weeks unless old bulb is soft or shows decay. 
Wait until they separate with ease and 
without tearing the new root bast. This 
waiting period is the most desirable time for 
sprinkling your bulbs lightly with napthalene 
flakes. See paragraph on that subject. 
INSECT PESTS AND BULB DISEASES 
This subject, fortunately, has again be¬ 
come relatively unimportant to the well in¬ 
formed, who have learned that simple, pre¬ 
ventive measures are better than compli¬ 
cated and sometimes ineffective curative 
measures. 
Likely, your bulbs are clean and need none 
of these treatments, but we are presenting 
this information for those who may need it. 
Inspect your bulbs before planting If 
doubtful looking, remove entire husk, though 
the husk does function to ward off from the 
planted bulb frost, fungus diseases, grubs 
and wire worms. 
We proceed with our subject under sub 
titles. 
FUSARIUM YELLOWS 
FUNGUS DISEASE 
We discuss this subject because so many 
buyers of planting stocks (and blooming 
sizes) order in stocks from different localities, 
basing their purchases largely on attractive 
price. When such price has been made possi¬ 
ble by neglect of proper field rotation and 
lack of scientific bulb treatments, such in¬ 
tensive culture often results in your receiving 
bulbs which develop a core rot as the storage 
season progresses. If you do not discover 
this eating away of the bulb tissue where the 
roots must emerge, if at all, and plant this 
fungus infected bulb, the stem of the plant 
will wither, tips of leaves begin to turn yellow 
and die back. Progressively, the entire plant 
is affected and eventually dies. Unless this 
plant and the surrounding soil is removed, 
the fungus will rapidly spread in the soil. 
The following year this location will be un¬ 
safe either for your or our sound bulbs. 
In certain areas of intensive gladiolus 
cultivation this subject is so serious that, 
eventually, a mass exodus from the locality 
may be the only solution. Very fortunately, 
Ohio growers, as yet, have little or no ex¬ 
perience with the disease. 
Not so serious are various types of scab 
and dry rot that only produce localized lesions 
on the bulb, which can be gouged out, or the 
organisms that cause these can be starved 
out by rotation of planting location or the 
corrosive sublimate treatment. 
