To my Many Customers and Friends -- Greetings. 
This is not going to be the sort of announcement 
that you have expected from me, I am afraid, but 
under the circumstances it is the only announce- 
ment that I could send you. 
There will be no catalog of Scheer Gladiolus this 
year. If this announcement comes as a disappoint- 
ment to you I can assure you that it is a far great- 
er disappointment to myself. However, much as 
I would have preferred to issue my customary 
announcement, I could see no other way out un- 
der the circumstances. In order that you may 
thoroughly understand the reasons that forced 
me to this decision I am sending you this letter. 
In the first place you must understand that, up 
to this time, my work with the glads has been a 
part time job - while no longer anywhere nearly 
as actively engaged in the practice of my regular 
profession as I had been for many years, I am 
still practicing on a much reduced scale, - and I 
suppose that I shall be taking care of some of my 
faithful old patients just as long as I have a leg 
under me, because I feel that I owe it to them. 
As my gladiolus business continued to grow I 
found it increasingly more difficult to give my 
glads all of the care that I should have liked to 
give them, and so I was forced to turn the greater 
part of the regular routine work over to hired 
helpers. On the whole, I was rather fortunate in 
being able to get intelligent and dependable 
young chaps who where still in high school, but 
that meant that at the most critical times, plant- 
ing in spring, and digging in fall, my help was far 
_ short of what it should have been. Since those 
tasks call for experienced help and since such 
help was seldom available when most needed, it 
was necessary to make the best of the situation 
with such help as I was able to get. In a nutshell, 
my growing business had gotten a bit too big for 
me as a part time job, and as an inevitable result 
I noted more mixing of varieties than should have 
been. 
Beg feos 
