at present, and are considered by those growing them to be EXCEP¬ 
TIONALLY good. One poor report will do inore harni than the good 
accomplished by a dozen good reports. 
Any variety or seedling not doing well here, IS NOT LISTED IN 
OUR REPORT. 
We have left much information out of this report, to conserve 
space, and thereby saye expense. The additional information is yours 
for the asking however, Unless we mention a fault, such as not al¬ 
ways being straight you may assume that thjese things grow straight. 
An occasional misplaced floret, in a quantity grown, is overlooked. 
Where we have only a few, the percentage of poor facing, etc., will 
eliminate the variety from being included here. A very large num¬ 
ber of varieties had the misfortune to bloom at a time when condi¬ 
tions were such that Picardy would have been discarded, had we not 
grown it for years before, 
Where possible, with quantity available, we have grown these in 
various types of soil, and side by side with approved standards as 
a check. 
No listing of gladiolus would seem to be complete without a word 
or two concerning harvesting, thrips, etc. So we will give you our 
method of care for what it is worth, and invite suggestions for im¬ 
provement. Our plantings are larger than many of the plantings we 
have visited, and many that have been getting cut lists for years. We 
still are learning and hope to keep on. Here is our method and we 
think it is good. 
We keep ahead of our digging, cutting off the tops and gathering 
them up. We go over the ground with burlap saturated in oil and 
burning to take care of the thrips on the ground. As we dig, we place 
bulbs, with topping completed, into trays of six and eight mesh 
hardware cloth. (Second grade can be purchased for little more than 
good screen). As fast as they are dug, we take to a washing rack 
and use HIGH WATER PRESSURE ON THEM. If you disagree with 
the pressure, don’t use it. The objection is made that it loosens the 
husks. If you will cut off yopr tops instead of breaking them off, 
you will find the loosening to be negligible. A husked bulb, while 
losing weight rapidly at first, will lose very little more weight than 
one that is not husked through the storage season. Any slight differ¬ 
ence there might be, will come back to the bulb after planting. At 
this stage we feel we are free from thrips and proceed to allow the 
bulbs to cure in the trays before going to COLD STORAGE. While 
we are afraid of the use of napthalene, we still use the flakes with 
care. We are also using agaeidex this season and think we are going 
to like it. 
On our travels this season, we were told by grower after grower 
that napthalene had injured their bulblets to a very great extent. We 
have always cleaned out our napthalene flakes quite early in storage 
but this season we are packing a gallon of bulblets in flakes to check 
their performance. 
We have just completed a few small tests on thrips with Carbon 
Monoxide. We went to a neighboring garden and gathered blooms 
with thrips, not having any thrips of our own. (Frost must have 
killed oqrs). We found that in a few minutes the fumes had killed 
the thrips. We are periodically treating a quantity of bulbs the 
same way to see if we can note any harm to the bulbs. If not, we 
will use this method to the exclusion of any other, as it will prob¬ 
ably be the most economical for large quantities, 
Last spring we read of the results of dipping bulbs in Lysol solu¬ 
tion, as a disease preventative and of the quickened results obtained 
thereby. To try this out we took one hundred fifty each of three 
varieties, aU the same AGE AND SIZE. Divided them into lots of 
fifty each and planted as follows; 
Direct to Bi Chloride treatment from cold storage; 
Planted Bloomed 
DEL RAY—bllO 8|25 
GRAND SLAM—5|ie 8|10 
EARLY MELODYS—5|10 8|.4 
Heated 30 days 70 to 80 degrees, then treated with Bi Chloride; 
DEL RAY—5110 8121 
