reetin gs 
F ’ d Nov. iT; 1950 
rienas: 
| wish to sincerely thank all my customers and friends for the many thousands 
of orders sent me last season and also for the quantities of appreciative letters 
sent me. | shall try to merit your continued patronage. 
This is a sad day for me. The 
last of the glads are gone. | have a 
Hower shop and of course have 
glads from Florida during the winter 
but these are only a few com- 
mercial kinds. It isn't like having a 
lot of varieties of different types to 
revel among. Those of you who are 
not glad ‘fans’ can’t appreciate this 
but the real “dyed in the wool’ 
gladiolus ‘fiends’ can realize my 
feeling when the glads are gone. 
There will be no more till next July 
and that is a long time. However like 
all the rest of you | can dream and 
think of all the fine new ones | am 
going to have next year and can plan 
for the shows and for my garden, and 
this is a lot of fun for us glad “‘nuts. 
Speaking of new ones it seems 
as if most everyone was hybridizing 
and with the good varieties available 
to use many new breeders are getting 
some first class seedlings. No one is getting many but here and there a fine new 
variety appears. | don’t claim to get all the best but | do try to pick out the ones 
that seem to be real improvements over existing varieties. The other growers kid me 
about introducing so many new ones but when you break the list down into the 
many classes, sizes and types there really aren't too many provided they are 
good and | believe every one | am introducing this year is outstanding in its class. 
Better try a few. 
At the shows the weather is always a favorite topic of conversation. It has 
always been too hot and dry or too wet and cold so that the blooms we had 
hoped to have for the show are either too early or too late. Yet somehow the 
shows get better year by year. | am no show grower but just go out to the field 
and cut whatever | happen to have. Last season at the Boston Show | won the 
two highest awards for commercial exhibits. | have won one of these awards 
for the past three years. 
This year let us all try to grow them a little better. There is a tremendous 
difference in glads between those just stuck in the soil and left to shift for them- 
selves and those that are given some care. They will usually give fair results 
under most any conditions except ‘wet feet’ and shade but if the drainage is 
good they will be greatly benefitted by plenty of water. It is really more important 
than a lot of fertilizer. 
* Here's to a grand ‘glad’ year in 1951. ELMER GOVE 

