
The Season 
Boy, oh! Boy, what a season for glads. 
It was just a little dry at planting time, 
especially for the bulblets. However, 
early planted bulbs, such as Snow Prin- 
cess, Golden Teton and Lavender & Gold, 
took an early jump, and were in bloom 
by July 1st, which is two weeks ahead 
of our regular schedule. Well folks, it 
was one of those rare seasons, the per- 
fect growing season, with rain coming 
at regular intervals of perhaps five to 
eight days, and at no time did our glads 
have a chance to dry out. We had no 
use whatever for our irrigation lines. 
The rain fell just when we needed it, 
and plenty of it. 
Naturally, the perfect growing condi- 
tions produced some marvelous bulbs 
from bulblets. Last spring, in an un- 
occupied moment, the writer started to 
peel a few Blue- Beauty Bulblets, they 
were so large and husky looking. I must 
have peeled a couple of thousand. They 
were planted in my test garden lot, 
where they had very good cultivation, 
but no water or fertilizer. I dug them 
last week, and there were four trays 
full, probably two thousand bulbs, 80% 
of them being large No. 1 size, and the 
finest I have ever seen. All of our bulb- 
let stock is running into large sizes, and 
the finest stock we have ever grown. 
We leased twelve acres of fresh 
ground down near our Missouri River 
last spring. The soil is quite sandy in 
that area, but we risked practically our 
entire bulblet stock there. The rain fell 
there too, and we are harvesting the 
finest crop of young bulbs we have ever 
seen. For instance, two rows of White 
Gold, 1800 feet long, produced 62 full 
trays of mostly medium and large bulbs. 
Purple Supreme, Ethel Cave Cole, King 
Lear, Lady Jane and Buckeye Bronze 
were just as prolific. We are looking 
around for another sandy field for 1950. 
Most of the named varieties seemed to 
be better than in 1948, altho a few fell 
off a little in performance. Of course 
that happens year after year and we 
cannot explain it. But the season was 
one grand thrill after another. 
‘job to produce your own first 
GLAD SEEDLINGS FOR ThnlLLS 
BY E. L. VENNARD 
For many years the average home 
gardener considered that hybridizing, or 
producing new gladiolus from seed, was 
a science far beyond the understanding 
of Mr. Average Gardener. However, in 
late years we have found more and more 
“common people” embarking in the game 
as a hobby. If I should happen to drop 
into some friends’ back yard garden, 
and find some spikes decorated with 
“pyaper sacks” or tags he or she would 
sheepishly admit that they were trying 
their hand at seed production! Fine; and 
great fun. There seems to be one rather 
discouraging out-look which causes some 
to hesitate. That is the time element in- 
volved. True, it is about a three-year 
“new 
creations”. 
The writer of these notes made his 
start about 1940; and have continued at 
it ever since. It happens to be so simple 
that any 10-year old child can carry on, 
so far as the mechanics are concerned. 
Of course the seedling grower should 
have a reasonable acquaintance with the 
best glads in commerce; and should be 
qualified to determine at a glance if 
his new creation is an improvement over 
existing varieties, or is similar to some- 
thing already in the market. If his new 
seedling even remotely resembles some- 
thing already in the trade there is no 
advantage in naming it. To be able to 
know these things, the hybridizer should 
have had some years experience in glad- 
growing. 
Producing seed with known parentage 
is about as simple as producing fine 
flowers. In the early morning, we select 
a group of plants to be used as “seed 
parents”. We remove the anthers from 
the freshly opened blooms, three or four 
on each spike, and then pin the stigma 
or pistil of each to an upper petal with 
a toothpick to keep it away from bees 
and other insects. After preparing the 
seed parents, we select a group of strong 
spikes for “pollen parents”. We cut and 
carry these spikes into our basement, or 
