HOW TO CARE FOR THE BULB 
After it blooms leave the bulb in the ground as long as the leaves remain 
green, because it is maturing and setting bulblets. When the leaves turn brown, 
dig at once. Sometimes brown leaves early in the Fall mean diseased bulbs, in 
which case they should be lifted at once and examined for rot, and if found to be 
spoiled the entire plant should be destroyed. A freeze that kills the leaves does no 
harm to the bulb, but do not let the bulb itself be frozen, as it is easily killed. Late 
digging means a larger bulb and more bulblets, because this underground growth 
takes place much faster late in the season. 
If you will save the bulblets when you dig, and scatter them in the same trench 
with your bulbs of the same variety when you plant again, you may have a crop 
of young bulbs along with your older bulbs, and a welcome increase of your stock 
in all sizes large and small. Because the smaller bulbs bloom later than the larger 
ones, you may thus prolong the blooming season next time. 
I do not spread the bulbs out in the sun for curing, because the sun wilts and 
softens them. Cut the tops off as you dig, and place in shallow trays with screen- 
wire bottoms for curing, or in paper bags with open tops. It takes a month or two 
for curing, and then you can easily remove the old bulb and roots, separating the 
bulblets. These new bulbs remain dormant for about three months after digging, 
and should not be planted as they will not grow during that time. My bulbs are 
dug in October, and should not be planted before January. Store your bulbs where 
it does not freeze, and where it is dry and airy, and preferably where it is cool. 
DISEASES 
Bulbs that have diseased spots on them should be destroyed. Examination often 
reveals small discolored veins leading from the surface scab to the core of the bulb, 
so of course the removal of the surface spot does not eliminate the disease from 
the bulb. If the diseased bulb is planted, the soil moisture and rains will carry the 
disease to other near-by plants. Dead plants in the garden could be diseased plants, 
and should be pulled up and destroyed. If you are bothered with disease, try fresh 
stock on new ground. This will usually solve your problem. Experienced commer- 
cial growers of large plantings of glads use dangerous poisons as disinfectants suc- 
cessfully, but “fresh stock on new ground” is a very practical remedy for the home 
gardener to use. If you wish to use the best of these poisonous disinfectants, pur- 
chase a can of New Improved Ceresan and follow directions contained thereon, 
except that for glads you dip for only fifteen minutes and plant at once. | 
THRIPS 
If the blooms and leaves appear shriveled or burnt, the trouble probably is 
thrips. This is a very small insect, light greenish when young and black when full 
grown and ready to fly. They crawl in between leaf and stem, and rasp the tender 
surface to suck the plant juices. The easiest means of control for thrips is the dust- 
ing of the foliage once a week with D.D.T., available most anywhere for that pur- 
pose. This is also completely effective for bulbs in storage. 
WHEN GLADS CHANGE COLOR 
The bulblets produce glads identical with the mother bulb year after year in- 
definitely, with the single exception that maybe once in several hundred thousand 
times there will be what is commonly called a “sport”. A sport, or mutation, is a 
sudden change in some quality or characteristic. The change in the case of the glad 
sport that usually interests us is a color change. For example, the white LEADING 
LADY, a sport of PICARDY, has all the qualities of PICARDY, as well as its 
habits of growth, with the one change from pink to white. Notice that a sport is 
both abrupt and exceedingly rare. : 
So many folks ask about their glad mixtures that in the course of time become 
all one color, or perhaps only a few colors. These people think that their glads 
changed, when in fact the stronger varieties of their original mixture survived dur- 
ing the years, while the weaker growers gradually lost out and disappeared. The 
missed colors are lost, not changed. 
