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THE GLADIOLUS FANCIER’S 




CANDID COMPARISONS 
(at random) 
With more bulbs of Harmau and Stella 
Antisdale at large this year, we expect their 
recognition as among the world’s best glads 
by all who see them. 
We introduced Rosa Van Lima some few 
years ago with remarks about its wonderful 
color value. This year we declare so all may 
hear that Coutts’ Orchid and Jeanie and 
Bobby Dazzler and Pastel reach new and 
almost unapproachable peaks of color beauty. 
Years hence we want you to remember we 
told you so. Almost equally fortunate is the 
fact that all four of these varieties have size 
and high quality performance. If white can 
be said to have color beauty, then Silentium, 
with its smooth blending to a cream center 
containing a small carmine mark is also 
strikingly elegant. 
When we add a small glad to our list you 
know it’s good. It’s ‘“Perky.”’ Look it up. 
The patent glads have proven their worth 
for exhibition in the stiffest possible competi- 
tion. 
Picardy has passed its peak. No longer 
can it take down 8 or 10 grand champion- 
ships per year in major glad shows. Last year 
it only collected two, while Myrna, Algon- 
quin and Red Lory did as well and Shirley 
Temple did one better. In fact, Picardy is 
being attacked for this honor by glads in 
most other colors now. Moreover, out cata- 
log listings move so fast that glads just over 
their peak are likely to suddenly disappear, 
so do not be surprised if you have to buy your 
Picardy elsewhere next year. (Sic transit 
gloria). Note. Watch H. P. Pitt. 
Our glads are 100% free of mosaic and 
fusarium. 
If Hurricane did not do a bit of crooking in 
extremely severe temperatures you would 
have to lay down plenty hard money to 
acquire some. As it is, if you buy some glads 
known to do a limited amount of crooking, 
as Amberglow, Margaret Beaton, Shirley 
Temple, Miss New Zealand, Raysheen, because 
otherwise they are so grand, then Hurricane 
is a ‘‘must have.”’ 
Don’t let differing type classifications get 
your goat. All and sundry are working and 
experimenting toward a common goal. Its 
not one of those ‘‘East is East and West is 
West and ne’er the twain shall meet’’ affairs. 
If you place an order for sample lots of 
varieties to try, this year we will give a 
valuable word of advice. Somewhere in the 
following list of glads there is a size between 
a large bulb and a bulblet that will fit your 
pocketbook. If you fail to include every 
single one of them you will be overlooking 
some of the most wonderful new glads to be 
had at reasonable price. But for a few cranks 
and crooks always laying in wait to take ad- 
vantage of such offers, we would be fully justi- 
fied in offering them to you on a guarantee of 
satisfaction or money back basis. Here they 
are. Be sure to order samples, at least: 
Coutts’ Orchid, Crystal, H. B. Pitt, Harmau, 
Helen of Troy, Jeanie, R. B., Rosa Van Lima, 
Sir Galahad, Stella Antisdale. Yes, that’s ten 
of them and this is one of those “‘I told you 
so’ things we ask you to recall four or five 
years hence. 
Our mistakes in cataloging over a 14 year 
period have been negligible. Our customers 
get to recognize this and most hybridizers 
would like to see their originations appear 
in our most carefully considered listings. 
We fear we may have erred in calling Dr. 
A. J. Verhage a good commercial. We thought 
it was about flawless but last year bulblet 
production and germination were too low with 
us to warrant the commercial designation. 
For two years previously its propagation 
seemed satisfactory. 
Our thrill is in discovering the best of the 
new ones. Sometimes in our trial lots of 
imported varieties, sometimes at the 8 or 10 
shows we attend each year, sometimes right 
among our own seedlings. But our greatest 
thrill last season came from a bloom from a 
peeled bulblet of one of E. Both’s varieties 
which we are propagating as fast and furiously 
as possible pending their release by the U. S. 
government to public sale. This was the 
variety ‘‘Tunia’s Mahomet.’ Unfortunately 
it is not included in that group of six giants 
we have pictured on the back cover of this 
booklet, but we are inclined to believe it must 
be bigger still. This peeled bulblet did out- 
do its fellows of the same variety but only to 
degree. It first made a plant approximating 
the size of the average plant from large bulb 
of average variety. This all in open field from 
start to finish, with no shading or tent or 
other special pampering other than some 
fertilizer applied at time of planting, water 
irrigation a couple times when rain was 
deficient. A sturdy spike over 40 inches high 
emerged, with 14 buds, six open, 714 inch 
floret, diminishing but little up the spike. 
Color is a rather smooth orange toned 
smoky plum rose with orange scarlet blotch, 
as near as we can describe it now. Seems like 
a confusing description of so smooth a color, 
but its a beautiful smoky. Our visitors, who 
in September after we are home from the 
shows frequently overlap from breakfast to 
midnight, marveled at this spike for over a 
week. We could hardly wait for each floret 
to appear in order to set some pollen on it. 
Each with a different cross all the way up 
the spike. Later about 20 more bulblets 
bloomed and varied from 6 to 12 buds, with 
its size still much in evidence. These were used 
to duplicate the other crosses made, thus 
making it possible to list many of them in our 
listing of seed crosses. 
Our business is growing by leaps and 
bounds. Our ability to answer correspondence 
on relatively unessential subjects has almost 
reached the vanishing point. We pack our 
booklet with 48 pages of answers to many 
