Chapter VI 
SEED 

The humming-bird, the bumblebee, and the night-flying moth are Nature's 
three busiest hybridizers as far as Gladiolus are concerned. Many beautiful 
varieties have been produced in this manner. Definite progress, however, has 
never been made in the past by the “hit-and-miss” method, and we can think of 
no reason why there should be definite progress in the development of better 
or more disease resistant varieties by using this method in the future. There 
are two schools of thought on the method of protecting the floret from open 
pollenation by Nature’s “little helpers’. Some say all you have to do is to 
remove the stamens and pin the pistil high up in the floret with a toothpick. 
We have definitely and conclusively proven to our own satisfaction that this 
method is not positive protection at all times. The other method is to protect 
the floret in such a manner that they may not enter the flower at all, by the use 
of cheese-cloth bags or other similar devices. We feel that we want to definitely 
know that we, ourselves, made the cross, and can intelligently use the data thus 
obtained in checking back on known ancestry. We use the cheese-cloth bag 
method, and by so doing we definitely know the parentage of the seed we plant, 
and of the seed we furnish on your orders. 

We had hoped to have plenty of seed to offer you for this year, but unfortunately the 
rains came and put a stop to the hybridizing, as a result we do not have as much seed 
for our own use as we would like. We, therefore, have no seed for sale this year. 
It is our belief that many of our customers would like to plant seed obtained from the 
identical cross which produced some of our outstanding Gladiolus of today, and so we 
made a number of such crosses, besides our regular planned crosses. Below we give an 
example of how we had planned to list them. (We claim to be the originators of this 
method of listing seed) : 
Cross 
No. Seed Parent x Pollen Parent This is the cross that produced: 
40- 25 Apricot Glow x Coryphee Gem-Mary Mackay 
40- 45 Apricot Glow x Dorothy Simpson King’s Ransom 
40- 53 Apricot Glow x Emile Aubrun Picardy-Peggy Lou-Evensong 
40- 64 Apricot Glow x Maid of Orleans Gardenia-Fairy Queen 
40- 72 Brightside x Heritage Hansel 
40- 75 Brightside x Picardy Cinderella 
40- 78 Brightside x Rosemarie Pfitzer | Arethusa 
40- 89 Picardy x Commander Koehl  Flash-Regent-Vagabond Prince- 
Algonquin-Resolution-Ohio 
Nonpareil-Firefly-Ardent 
40-124 Yellow Gold x Golden Goddess 
40-130 Zuni x Bagdad 
40-142 Zuni x Danny Boy 
If you have some particular cross in mind from which you would like to obtain seed, 
write us so that we will receive it by March Ist so we can plan our blooming dates 
to bring the varieties in bloom at the same time, we will endeavor to make such cross, 
and if successful, list the seed in our next year’s catalogue. We must, however, have 
your request not later than March Ist. Please limit your request to not more than 
fwo crosses. 
NO SEED FOR SALE THIS YEAR 
[16 J 
