NORTH, SOUTH, EAST, WEST—NATURE’S TREASURE CHEST Page 1 
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Now a word about our show gardens. We don’t maintain 
fancy exhibition plots. We have found that we can spend too 
much time and money keeping such things up—the cost of which 
would have to be passed on to you flower lovers. Hence when 
you come around, bring your hiking shoes (and maybe over- 
shoes) and an ample lunch for you won’t be able to make the 
rounds all in 10 minutes. In one day this year we had over 2,750 
visitors—if you pay us a visit try to come on some day other 
than Sunday to avoid the crowd. 


Many have asked how life runs on an Iris Farm. In the 
first place there are many long hours—no quitting at 4 PM 
and starting at 9 A.M. actually this business is closely akin to 
farming (we were wheat farmers prior to going crazy on our 
present hobby). During the early spring and summer we like 
to receive your. order 
: early so we can process 
it ahead of the summer 
r rush. Plant orders unlike 
mf Mare gi. oF other commodities must 
RECEIVIN’ be placed ahead of plant- 
ing time to insure your 
getting what you want. 
In addition to writing up 
your order, we also write 
labels for each and every 
plant you order. Every 
order is given a number ‘ 
and this number also ap- HR 
pears on each plant label fy 
for later assembling and fe 
packing of the individ- fae 
ually dug roots. Alice M. (gga 
Geiser (Mrs. G. W. Gei- 
ser) gets in on this job. 



We try to make every order a fresh dug 
order—no machine dug roots as we have found 
that this injures too many plants. But you peo- 
ple “down South,” please don’t send us an or- 
der in January for immediate delivery—we have snow up here in 
Kansas and are usually froze up then. However, we did dig one ‘or- 
der for 200 roots on January 4th this year during a 1 day thaw and 
sent them off to an “iris bug” down in Texas. We usually can start 
digging around March Ist. ; 
Now as to labeling those roots. Some firms dig a quantity 
of each root and then bring them into an assembly shed where 
the roots are individually labeled. We have found that this 
method takes a chance on a root being taken from the wrong 
basket and thereby being incorrectly labeled, hence we label 
the plants as we dig them right in the field. Our crew of local 
high school boys are expert at this job (it keeps us busy super- 
vising the office, and the packing shed). Incidentally if you 
/LABELIN’ want some permanent labels, we have some very fine ones both 
aluminum and plastic types. You will find them listed elsewhere 
in this catalog. ; 
Well, sir after getting those iris dug, we top them right in the 
field with a pair of those big horse mane shears—do a good, job too. 
Surprisingly enough, we have never been able to tell any difference 
in “short topped” or “long topped” iris. Hence we cut them medium — 
short to save on boxing and postage (this savings is thereby passed 
on to you in FREE Premiums—see inside back cover). 



