Greetings... 
GLAD FAN FOLKS: 
Greetings and salutations to all of you. Thank you for your nice orders and more espe- 
cially for the appreciative acknowledgements. Our past growing season here has been 
very successful for us and I hope that this same may be true for all those of you who 
ventured in Gladiolus raising. Many of the newer varieties tried out for our first attempt 
at growing them appeared to live up to all that was claimed for them by their Originators, 
however, being myself like many others who in spite of all else still have their individual 
preferences as to style and coloring—I prefer the pastels and ruffled of medium sizes— 
being prejudiced especially against some with certain prominent markings, it would not do 
for me to write as a valuator of them while consideration should be given their other ad- 
mitted good qualities. We are still growing and offering for sale many of the older favorites 
which still are what the cut flower Buyers and local Florists seem to believe—judged by 
our volume of such sales—to be hard to beat, that are inexpensive in price. There are 
many meritorious varieties grown and offered for sale that we do not list, each individual 
grower must limit themselves at some certain number. Each year we must discard some 
varieties, often times disliking to do so, in order to try out newer originations. None have 
ever been offered for sale that we did not candidly believe worthy of culture. In con- 
clusion we would wish to repeat that regardless of whence you may order anticipated 
plantings from, we wish to all of you, “Happy growings”. 

BULBLET STOCK 
(Reprint from our 1945 listing) 
“The statement that certain 
varieties of Gladiolus Bulblets 
do not germinate to a high 
percentage of the number 
planted is true if taken in the 
sense as we culture them. 
Gladiolus in their originality 
are a native of equatorial 
Africa, its natural environment 
the wet “rainy” season during 
which it grew, and the arid 
“dry” season during which it 
remained dormant, its “rest- 
ing” period. With the tenden- 
cies of Nature to perpetuate 
herself against adversities — 
some bulblets would germin- 

ate the first growing season, The above illustration shows seme of our bulblet stock 
many not until after succeed- as of August 15, 1948, planted the first week of May. 
ing ones. It has been discover- Individual “tanks”, each of which will accommodate ap- 
ed in our modern culture that proximately 700 bulblets are used for growing new va- 
in order to procure a greater rieties. While this method might rightly be considered 
germination of Bulblets during “pampering” yet a more perfect control may be had as 
our season’s planting period to their propagation. 
that we may obtain better re- 
sults by soaking Bulblets in 
water for a period of time shortly previous to their being planted. An even better method 
one practiced by many before planting the rarer high priced ones, is to peel or at least 
break their hard shell by rolling between thumb and finger before planting them. Adverse 
opinion as to the size of planting stock needed to produce good sized blodm notwithstand- 
ing, many varieties, especially those of newer originations will produce an astonishing 
percentage of good sized bloom even from bulblet stock”. This past season we planted 
bulblet stock of seventy new varieties, all were peeled before planting, several germinated 
100 percent as to variety, perhaps we were fortunate but none germinated less than 90%. 
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