fact about all this is that our favorite flower 
keeps improving year by year. 
We often hear the criticism made that there 
are too many new introductions each year... that 
they possibly cannot all be good or outstanding. 
With this I do not agree. We have hundreds, pos- 
sibly thousands, of gladiolus growers hybridizing 
and with the wonderful varieties they have to work 
with, it is only natural that many fine new seed- 
lmgs are produced. However, I do agree that it 
takes many requirements to make a new variety 
**good’’. It must have improved color, it must 
have keeping qualities and the ability to open 
well when cut in bud... these requisites in 
addition to the former qualities of placement, 
number open, health, vigor, etc. When you put 
together all the requisites a variety of gladiolus 
now needs, not many can measure up to all this 
after years of trial. 
Getting back to what I started to say... 
1949 was a fine year, but it was also a most 
trying one. Here in the midwest after a rather 
dry planting season in early May, we received a 
stretch of hot, rainy weather which germi- 
nated an abundance of weed seeds which had ac- 
cumulated during four succeeding dry years. 
It seemed that we were just able to get the glad 
fields nicely weeded and cultivated, when a 
good, warm rain would come and germinate a 
bounteous new crop of weeds. This program 
repeated itself throughout most of the summer, 
until really dry weather set in around mid-August 
and continued until the digging season was over. 
Gs SRtRE oO 
Peete 
Wisconsin (QL9 
Seeding and Recent 
\utrioduction Shaw 

