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dug them. Think the trouble this time was that | put pulverized sheep manure in the trench. Had 
wonderful spikes of bloom but rotten bulbs. ‘ 
In spite of all you read about diseases the chances are you will not have any trouble unless 
your ground is too wet. Don’t be scared out from growing glads just because there are disease 
problems. Everything we grow has its troubles. 
Spotted Blooms 
Where the blooms are mottled or spotted it is usually a virus known as bean mosaic. This 
is a disease that spoils the bulbs and is carried from plant to plant by aphis and some other insects. 
For this reason you should have some killing agent in your dust or spray thaf will kill other insects 
besides thrips. Sometimes this virus attacks the whole stock of a variety and again it is carried from 
one variety to another. But how ever you get it simply destroy the bulb. 
In some varieties under certain conditions the color peels out. This is entirely different from 
spotting. It is a variety characteristic and occurs only when the weather conditions are not right. 
Very few varieties do this. 
Price no Indication of Quality 
Usually when a variety is introduced the stock is small and it is priced at from 
$1.00 to $10.00, sometimes lower and sometimes higher. As the stock increases the 
price goes down. Of course a new variety should be better than an older variety of its 
color class. This isn't always the case but it should be. Some of the oldest varieties that 
have stood the test of time over a long period of years are down to the lowest price 
level and yet are often as good as most of the newer ones. As a rule price should indi- 
cate the amount of stock available rather than. quality. But of course any introducer 
intends to have his new introductions improvements over the older kinds. 
I Write my own Catalog 
Many people will read my catalog and then write me for my own personal opin- 
ion about various varieties. | write this catalog myself and do not depend on any 
advertising man with a strong imagination as some of the seed catalogs seem to be 
written. | try to make my descriptions as accurate as possible and tell just what | think of 
the various varieties. So if you ask me for my personal opinion | can’t do any better 
than to refer you to the catalog. 
The Future of Gladiolus 
| think there is a very promising future for glads in every way. For the private gardener glads 
are going to be improved continually for many years, to hybridizers there are great opportunities 
for improvement, for the cut flower or bulb grower there are infinite possibilities limited only by 
the ability to educate the public. | have no figures to prove anything but | believe that throughout 
the country the percentage of people who could grow gladiolus but don’t is very large. 
Some twenty-eight years ago when | was first getting into the business | asked a large com- 
mercial grower in Massachusetts if the gladiolus industry wasn’t soon going to be greatly over- 
done. He replied that the surface had hardly been scratched yet. | didn’t believe it at that time 
but | do believe that those are the conditions now. Of course there are times when there is a glut 
of blooms on the market but there never yet has been a surplus of top quality stock. The annual 
glut in the cut flower markets is usually of the poorer varieties poorly grown. If the public could 
get a much greater variety of colors and types, all well grown, there would be a very much larger 
demand for the blooms. : 


“Last year’s bulbs were truly wonderful. They were a source of constant delight to us and 
to our friends and neighbors in Bronxville.” —George J. Auer, New York 17, N. Y. 
