As everyone knows, my chief interest in glads is 
the breeding angle. For several years past, due 
to the fact that I was obliged to give a good share 
of my time to chores that could have been done 
fully as well by competent helpers, I found very 
little time for breeding - in fact during two or 
three years I did not make even a single cross. 
That meant that, from my viewpoint, those years 
were entirely wasted. It is my purpose to try to 
catch up, as much as possible, on this work. 
And then there is also the trouble that I experie- 
need with the virus that infested my patch sev- 
eral years ago. To me the most deplorable thing 
about this virus is the fact that I myself was sole- 
ly to blame for its appearance. Up until a year or 
two ago virus in glads was to me only something 
that I had read about but had fortunately never 
seen. Then, in 1946 and 1947, I rented several 
acres of my field to the canning company to be 
planted to peas, never dreaming what the con- 
sequence might be, - this planting of peas was 
immediately next to my glad patch, with no more 
than 2% - 3 feet of ground between them over a 
stretch of 600 - 700 feet. It seemed to me at the 
time that peas were the logical crop to plant. I 
did not want the ground to lie fallow to grow a 
crop of weeds and I figured that peas, being 
legumes, would improve the soil by producing 
nitrates and, in addition, the crop would yield 
some revenue. Furthermore, the canning com- 
pany would do all of the work, plowing, seeding, 
and harvesting, thus saving me much time. What 
I did not know at the time was that the virus that 
attacks the gladiolus has its origin in plants of 
the legume family, such as peas, beans, alfalfa, 
various clovers etc. Needless to say that, if I had 
known this at the time nothing could have in- 
duced me to plant peas anywhere near my glad 
patch. Unfortunately, the information that gladi- 
olus virus disease definitely originated in plants 
of the legume family and was transmitted from 
the legumes to the gladiolus by aphids or plant 
lice, was not made public by the plant patholo- 
gists of the U. S. Department of Agriculture until 
late in 1947 - after all the damage had been done. 
pases pla 
