8 Champlain View Gardens 
are five stages of interest in growing ‘‘glads.’’ First you just grow them as an amateur, same as 
you would any other flower. Then as your interest in them increases you become a “fan,” then 
a ‘“‘bug,” then a “‘nut,” then finally a ‘“‘fiend.’” When you reach this final stage you are hopeless. 
You think of ‘“‘glads’’ all day, dream of them at night, spend every available minute of your time 
in the garden, talk of them, visit the shows, read all the catalogs and spend all your money on 
them. You will look lovingly at the last flower in the fall, will handle over your bulbs in the 
wintertime and will hardly be able to wait till you can lovingly plant the bulbs in the spring. 
From then till the first bloom appears is a period of happy anticipation. When finally the spikes 
of bloom begin to appear you are in heaven.’’ 
In which class are you? | have been in the last class for years. 
Have just heard of a still further stage of gladiolus interest. A man writes me that he is not 
a ‘‘fiend’”’ but a “damn fool.” | think that must be about the last stage. 
Guarantee 
| guarantee to do my utmost to please my customers. We mean to send out only clean 
bulbs, free from disease and insects. Any claims or complaints in regard to bulbs should be sent 
soon after receiving the bulbs. 
Of course if any bulbs are not true to name you can not make claims for that until after 
blooming. If anything goes wrong we always try to make a satisfactory settlement with the cus- 
tomer. This is the only way that anyone can hope to build up a business. 
However there are the following exceptions to my guarantee: 
1—We cannot guarantee in any way the crop of bulbs that you will harvest. Growing conditions 
are so variable and so much depends upon the soil and the weather and other local conditions 
that we cannot guarantee that you will harvest a good crop. It is beyond our control. 
2—We cannot guarantee that bulblets will grow. Not all bulblets will grow anyway. 75% is 
considered a good germination. Some kinds will germinate nearly 100%, while others will 
not ordinarily germinate more than 25%, Local conditions also affect them. If | had choice 
high priced bts. | would peel them or at least take a piece of the husk off one side. 
3—We cannot guarantee that all small bulbs will grow. | don't know why they don't but | do 
know that all of them do not grow. But there shouldn't be a large percentage that fail. 
4—We cannot guarantee that every bulb of a variety that is a sport from another variety will 
produce blooms like the sport. Sometimes they revert. If you do get any bulbs that have 
reverted in high priced varieties | will be glad to replace them. Sometimes the white sports 
of Picardy revert and occasionally some others. 
When to Order 
Many people ask me when to order bulbs and when | ship them. They can be ordered 
anytime after my catalogs come out and if you don’t want the bulbs at that time we can 
ship at any time you say during the winter or spring. For southern growers we hold some 
till August or September but don’t have a large storage space for late storage and it is not 
cold enough either to hold later than September. 
To Florida Growers and Others in the Far South 
We often get orders for bulbs to be shipped from October to December. We have no 
bulbs ready to ship at that time and even if we had they would need a rest before being ready 
to plant. So if you want bulbs to plant in Florida in the fall the best way is to order them in the 
winter or spring and have them shipped to you in late spring or early summer and then you put 
them in cold storage and take them out when you want them. We have a storage here that we 
can keep them in till August but it is not cold enough to hold them later. 
