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THE GLADIOLUS FANCIER’S GUIDEBOOK FOR 1952 
You can take it for granted that 
maximum profits cannot be our princi- 
pal aim in selling only varieties of high- 
est quality, offering them from our own 
grown stock often before other cata- 
logers have had opportunity of pur- 
chase, selling them competitively at low- 
est available prices (OPS places no 
ceiling or cellar on glad bulbs), deliver- 
ing every bulb (not some) 100% clean 
and free of disease. Even our seeds are 
fingered for plumpness. We do _ not 
suffer by comparisons. We invite them. 
Usually our customers absorb their 
needs of a given variety in the first 4-5 
years of selling it at the usual annual 
reductions from its introductory price. 
If this price starts at $1. or less, more 
customers buy in the advantageous first 
year. For example, over a third of our 
customers have already purchased one 
or more Catherine Beath. 
So the common so-called “best stand- 
ard” varieties are dropped from our 
list while they are still the ‘bread and 
butter” items in most catalogs. Good as 
they are we have better now in sufficient 
quantities to offer. 
Abu Hassan gives way to Wedgewood 
(K&M 478). 
Appasionata, Grace Moore, Mrs. M. J. 
White give way to Maureen Gardner. 
Beersheba to Helen Eaken. 
Dieppe, C. Roberts, Joh. von Konynen- 
burg and Pfitzer’s Century give way to 
the beautiful Boccherini and Sans Souci. 
H. R. Hancock to the larger Dolly 
Varden. 
Lavender Dream to sturdy Col. W. C. 
Atkinson. 
Leading Lady gives way to Prof. 
Goudriaan. 
Lancaster to Aljechin. 
Spotlight and Sincerity to 
Lorene and World Beater. 
Swing and Vrede give way to the 
usually unbeatable Strathnaver, now in 
more substantial supply. 
Marlene Both, Mrs. E. Both and 
Tunia’s Fancy give way to Luxury, 
Polynesie ‘and: Broadway Melody. 
Ruth 
Sunspot gives way to Sheherezade, 
efc. 
Expensive Bulblets: Of course it’s no 
secret. All our customers, for many 
years have known that we double count 
bulblets priced 10 cents or more each, 
with very rare exceptions where the 
stocks are definitely outside our own 
control. 
Firsts: In our 24 years of cataloging 
we were the introducer, co-introducer or 
original import releaser of the follow- 
ing: Shirley Temple, Peggy Lou, Greta 
Garbo, Stella Antisdale, Coutt’s Orchid, 
Spitfire. We sold Rosa van Lima and 
Tivoli several years before most of the 
U. S.. catalogers did. World Beater and 
Gray Summit we listed a year before 
their respective hybridizers (Pfitzer 
and Butt) did. We often co-introduced 
even with foreign originator, such 
items as Marshall Montgomery, Mene- 
lik, Tunia’s Mahomet, Tunia’s Wizard, 
Silcherlied and Sans Souci. That’s pick- 
ing the winners even before the race 
to be first to offer them started. To 
continue, Boldface, Mid-America, Strath- 
naver, Ravel, Stralia, Salman’s Glory, 
General Eisenhower, Hugh Price, Morn- 
ing Kiss, Kittyhawk, Circe, Benjamin 
Britten, Aristocrat, Prof. Goudriaan, 
Polynesie, New York, Boccherini, Sans 
Souci and Catherine Beath. A long time 
record of choosing the right varieties 
that we are proud to mention. Equally 
important has been our exclusion of 
the “duds’’. 
We ask our regular customers to read 
our variety descriptions from year to 
year. They are not static “originator’s 
descriptions.” We keep them up-to-the- 
minute in light of additional growing 
experience and other facts collected from 
world-wide sources. 
_ As orders come in we keep a running 
inventory of sales vs. stocks, in order to 
be aware when a size or a variety is 
sold out. About May 1st we abandon this 
safeguard because of press of shipping 
work and preparation for our own plant- 
ings. On these late orders it is often 
difficult to know offhand if an item 
will hold out to the order number until 
reached. 
It takes substantial money, time, 
travel, field and show study and wide 
knowledge of current offerings and 
ability to correctly assess their char- 
acteristics of growth and color harmony 
to separate the ‘‘sheep” from the “goats”. 
The satisfaction we get in thus assisting 
the industry and our customers in the 
wise spending of their money for new 
material transcends our modest monetary 
gain and keeps us issuing new Guide 
Books. 
We have such a vast proportion of 
informative material in this Guide Book 
that it is necessary we become more 
brief in the variety descriptions, though 
descriptions are what produce orders 
and without orders the Guide Book 
would naturally cease. So kindly be 
mindful of our early declaration that 
traits or habits not specifically men- 
tioned are above the “satisfactory level’. 
