4 Champlain View Gardens 
in form. Usually they sport to a lighter shade but occasionally they will sport darker. Sports are 
not uncommon and usually when they do sport you can tell from the form of the bloom whether 
it is a sport or something else. 
Introductory Prices 
A lot of people complain because new varieties are introduced at a high price 
and bulblets are not sold the first year. | don’t know why this should be so. No one is 
obliged to buy them. Mink coats are advertised at three or four thousand dollars each 
and no one complains about that. Usually when a variety is introduced the stock is 
small and the price gradually decreases as the number of bulbs increases. If a variety 
is introduced at say $10.00 a bulb and bulblets were sold many growers by pamper- 
ing their bulblets could get them to bloom and make large bulbs the first year. In such 
cases where the bulblets were sold for perhaps a dollar it would be the same as 
introducing the variety at a dollar which wouldn't give the hybridizer or introducer 
much of a profit. Of course a variety could be held over three or four years and then 
introduced at a lower price but in that case the customer wouldn't have the variety 
to grow at all even at a high price. Usually when varieties are introduced at a high 
price the commercial growers are the ones who buy them the first year, a few being 
sold to the real hot glad fans. 
In case of varieties like Evangeline or Connie G every bulblet could easily be 
sold the first year and then the breeder or introducer would be out of luck. 
Breeding Glads 
One of the most interesting phases of growing glads is in hybridizing and pro- 
ducing new varieties. This is a very interesting part of glad growing and can give you 
some wonderful thrills but also some heartaches. Often by the time you get a real good 
one worked up to introduce someone else has a better one. | warn you that you will 
probably have to grow hundreds and maybe thousands of seedlings to get one good 
enough for introduction and perhaps you won't get one then. But you no doubt will 
get many that you will like. If you do try this use only the best varieties, those that 
have the best characteristics. Don't ask me what varieties to cross to secure super seed- 
lings. A few varieties that have produced good seedlings are the following: Algonquin, 
Corona, Elizabeth the Queen, King Lear, Lavender and Gold, Minstrel, Orange Gold, 
Picardy and Gen. MacArthur. There is a good deal of luck in breeding. For instance, 
Picardy is the most valuable variety ever produced but the cross from which it came and 
which has been made probably thousands of times never produced much else of value. 
You just have to use your own judgement crossing the best varieties that you can get. 
The mechanics of crossing glads is very simple, anyone who has studied botany 
should understand it. But if you haven't it is described in the Rockwell book. Better 
not go into the breeding game unless you are a good judge of glads. Too many people 
think because a glad grows from a seed it must be a worldbeater. Tho there are many 
fine glads being produced now the real worldbeaters are just as scarce as ever. 
Don’t Condemn a Variety 
on one year’s trial. Many times bulbs do better the second year than the first. It is claimed 
that they have to be acclimated. Whatever the reason is | don’t know but conditions may be 
better the second year and the bulbs do better. The first two years | grew Dieppe it was very 
disappointing but since then has been magnificent. And this has happened with other varieties. 


“As a new customer of yours | have been very pleased with the servicing of my orders. 
They arrive promptly and are beautifully packed and labelled, all in a most painstaking manner, 
and | have high hopes of having some very beautiful glads this year.” 
—Ralph S. Peirce Jr., Ill. 
