GUIDEBOOK FOR 1941 
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. 
BULBLE'YS 
The little hard shelled bulblets will not 
germinate until moisture reaches them. There- 
fore, it pays to keep them on the moist, 
almost continuously wet side to rot the shell 
until they begin to appear. Bulblets in quan- 
tity may be bagged, kept moist by occasional 
immersion in warm water and in a warm 
place, for a week or so, to hasten the shell 
rotting process. If some start rooting, plant 
all. If expensive bulblets in small lots, you 
may chip off a fragment of the shell with 
point of a small pocket knife, using care not 
to injure eye or root base. Plant early, as 
soon as ground warms in spring. 
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 base. 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 anu siced ione 
of _these treatments, but we are presenting 
this information for those who may need it. 
Page 43 
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. 
Unlike these surface lesions, Fusarium 
invades the root system, causes a browning 
of the core, sometimes with brown strands 
or streaks of discolored tissue extending from 
core to leaf bases. Replanting these bulbs 
to a new site results in further spread of the 
disease and ultimate rotting of the bulb. 
Such bulbs should be burned, not planted. 
[f an expensive bulb seems slightly affected 
and a desperate measure is sought to preserve 
its life you might try dipping the bulb for a 
moment in a suspension of calomel or yellow 
oxide of mercury, formula 1 oz. of either 
material to 5 pints of water. Drain bulb 
and plant immediately. 
Our bulbs are individually examined for 
the slightest sign of this disease and are de- 
stroyed on merest suspicion, since we feel 
it is hetter to be safe than sorry. 
