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THE: GLADIOLUS*FANGIRR Ss 

INTRODUCTORY 
It adopts your point of view. It gives 
you hitherto unpublished facts upon 
It is 
8 GAIN, this booklet is planned for you. 
which to base your own conclusions. 
not cluttered up with fictitious values. 
A small portion of the information in this 
booklet is repeated from last year. In such 
instances, the data is still so valuable that 
we cannot possibly leave it out. 
This is our 16th annual catalog. While we 
have been trying for years to say much in as 
little space as possible, this year we must 
outdo our former efforts. For the most part 
we are eliminating mention of prize winnings 
in variety descriptions inasmuch as our re- 
cent yearly tabulation of prize winning vari- 
eties seems to present a better over-all picture 
Use of paper by ‘‘non essential’’ industries 
must be conserved so reports on our visits to 
the shows has also been eliminated and four 
pages of cultural information as well. We 
know most of our customers keep their 
‘““Guidebook”’ from year to year to study the 
ebb tide of the older varieties caused by the 
up-surging rush of the newer ones as they 
come into production and wider dissemina- 
tion. We think we have enough copies of 
last year’s Guidebook to supply our new cus- 
tomers with the cultural and other informa- 
tion here missing. 
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 many pages of answers to many 
questions we get nevertheless. Every question 
vital to the selection and growing of good glads 
we think we have already answered some- 
where in this booklet or that of last year. 
In an unguarded moment two years ago, 
when we were still able to hire reasonably 
adequate help, we took on the non-lucrative 
volunteer federal job of chairman of our local 
ration board. Three times our area has been 
expanded until now we cover 10 towns, sub- 
urbs to the south east of Cleveland. And no 
one wants our job. Now the gasolene prob- 
lems alone for 10 towns take so much of our 
time that this work, our modest attempt to 
do our bit in assistance to the war effort, must 
be our excuse (pardonable, we hope) for lack 
of reply to numberless communications. 
No longer are we able to delegate to others, 
even at double recently going wage scales, all 
the detail and manual work we hitherto were 
able to sidestep for here in the center of a vast 
war industrial area both farm and horticul- 
tural labor has disappeared. 
Horticultural costs have gone up and will go 
higher. Paper and printing and cartons, too. 
A grower-cataloger of bulbs has certain in- 
escapable costs: planting stock, use of land, 
its preparation, planting, cultivating, digging, 
hauling, curing, cleaning, grading, storage 
quarters, fumigating or other processes to 
combat insects and bulb diseases, advertising 
of one form or another, catalogs, postage, 
packing and shipping. There may be addi- 
tional items of overhead such as clerical, irri- 
gation, spraying, etc. 
Heavier buying of the newer sorts has eaten 
into what should have been retained for 
propagating reserves. Inability to get plant- 
ed much of the small stocks of the older sorts 
also contributed to our failure to offer top 
size bulbs of some varieties. Customers have 
been flooding us with orders (with check) 
against last year’s listings to establish their 
rightful priority to bulbs of varieties in scarce 
supply. This. buying has depleted large 
bulbs of several sorts and has prevented us 
from listing any size of several others. Of 
two we have in limited stocks but have with- 
drawn to propagate (Mrs. E. Both and 
Oberbayern). 
This business is still competitive but prices, 
particularly on the cheaper ‘‘standards’’ are 
up a bit to cover costs. In order to reduce 
clerical work and the general confusion re-: 
sulting from discount items and net price 
items, the discounts are abandoned but the 
prices of most of the newer sorts are reduced 
to compensate and in many cases are lowered 
beyond that point. 
Over the years we have built up an enviable 
reputation for generous filling of orders by 
medium of overcount, oversize, samples of 
new sorts to try, free bulbs for society mem- 
berships, free memberships and color charts, 
etc. We realize our present method of pric- 
ing without bulb discounts places our prices 
on a few sorts including the Palmer varieties 
at some disadvantage. However, we prefer 
to let Red Charm and Corona, for instance, 
stand at 25c instead of around 22c and thus 
build up an “‘extra”’ credit reserve in attempt 
to fulfill your wishes expressed on reverse of 
order sheet (which see). 

Copyright 1944 
HERBERT O. EVANS 
Farm, State Rout 91 
P. O. Address, SOLON, OHIO 
NOTE—SAME LOCATION BUT NEW POST OFFICE ADDRESS 
