Considering the whole matter in the light of our 
present knowledge of gladious virus disease, I 
cannot conceive of a more effective method than 
the one that I had employed, if it were desired 
to surely and thoroughly inoculate an entire field 
with virus for experimental purposes - I am 
thoroughly convinced that there is no variety of 
glads to-day that could have resisted the virus 
when so directly exposed to it. 
Once aware of the presence of virus in my stock 
I took immediate measures to eliminate the virus. 
During the seasons of 1948-1949 I spent practi- 
cally every minutes of my time hunting down 
signs of virus disease and digging and destroying 
every plant that looked even the least bit sus- 
picious. The task of eradicating the virus from my 
stock proved to be far more difficult than I had 
anticipated. I believed, in fact I felt quite certain, 
that I had successfully removed every virus in- 
fested plant during the 1948 season - but when 
the season of 1949 came along I found that there 
was still considerable virus left. The exasperating 
feature about the type of virus with which I was 
dealing, the so-called “white break’, is that it 
produces no signs or symptoms in either bulb or 
plant until the florets open. Visitors to my patch 
the past season invariably commented about the 
excellent appearance of the plants, saying that 
they had never seen more healthy and robust 
plants - even the state inspectors remarked about 
the fine appearance of the field, - but that was 
before the glads had started to bloom. The pic- 
ture changed considerably then. After having 
worked hard for two seasons, trying to get rid of 
the virus, I decided that it would be far better 
to destroy the entire stock and to start all over 
with fresh virus-free stock - and that is what I 
am doing. Moral: Do not plant peas or beans 
close to your glads! 
I have given you, in considerable detail, the rea- 
sons why I decided not to publish my usual cata- 
log this season and I trust that I have made it quite 
clear to you why I decided upon this step. While 
it means the loss of quite a substantial little 
9 
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