Prospect and Retrospect 
How many times through the years, when the ther- 
mometer was over 100° and Old Sol shone down with 
blistering heat on a suffering glad garden, have we 
and all other glad fans longed for the PERFECT 
BLOOMING SEASON with comfortable temperatures, 
abundant rain, and gentle breezes! Well, in 1950 Na- 
ture came through with just that! Rain was occasion- 
ally short but our irrigation system made good the 
deficiency. Temperatures, however, were ideal. For 
almost the first summer in my recollection the ther- 
mometer here never went over 90°. Indeed it was so 
cool at times as to be uncomfortable, and on August 20 
areas near Rochester, Minnesota—twenty miles west of 
us—had a frost that turned nearly 10% of the corn- 
fields white. Although Minnesota seems a very north- 
erly state to residents of states south of us, we ordi- 
narily have as hot summers here as anywhere in 
America outside of the arid Southwest and August 
frosts are virtually unknown south of Minneapolis and 
St. Paul. The last previous one had been 35 years 
ago—in 1915. Fortunately our glads were not touched, 
though they had a close shave. All this cool weather 
resulted, of course, in magnificent blooms with the 
result that we are adding 59 new varieties to our list 
this year—the largest number of additions in any year 
to date. 
But, thrilling as our blooming season was, we did not 
escape the old law of compensation. So much cool 
weather delayed by two to three weeks the blooming 
of varieties timed for shows with the result that items 
like Noweta Rose and most of our 1951 introductions 
did not come into bloom until most of the shows were 
over. Also, the late spring and cool summer resulted 
in much retarded bulb growth. No. 1 bulbs are much 
scarcer the country over than last season. Providen- 
tially I had expanded our acreage more than enough 
to compensate for this and found it necessary to add 
500 more trays to accommodate our crop. Although 
we may be short on specific varieties, we feel that we 
have adequate stocks of bright, high-crowned bulbs to 
meet the probavie demand. 
We displayed at eight glad shows last summer: 
three in Minnesota, two in Iowa, one in Illinois, one in 
Ohio, and at the Central International Glad Show at 
Madison, Wisconsin. I won’t go into detail about our 
winnings at these shows, but I’d like to tell you what 
our seedlings won at the big show at Madison, which 
was held in the fieldhouse of the University of Wis- 
consin and was said to have been one of the two larg- 
est glad shows in America last season. Noweta seed- 
lings won: Div. Champion, 200 size, 3-spike, 138-47 
(since named White Lace); Award of Merit, 500 size, 
3-spike, 121-46; Most ruffled florets, 49-45; Div. Cham- 
pion, Seedling Arrangements, 8-47 (now called Cru- 
sader, to be introduced in 1952); Best single-spike 
seedling of the show, 269-47; and, Best 3-spike seedling 
and Grand Champion 3-spike of the show, 76-47. 
Grand-Champion of the show was Noweta Rose, dis- 
played by one of our customers, Mrs. Etta Feye of 
Believue, Iowa. 
We have enlarged the page size of our catalog this 
year in order to accommodate larger colored illustra- 
tions. You may wonder why we have used so many 
basket arrangements of the old-fashioned formal type. 
We have done so, not necessarily from a predilection 
for this type of arrangement, but because it seems to 
be about the only way to present artistically a large 
number of varieties in a single color illustration. Color 
printing is very expensive and getting as large a num- 
ber of varieties into each color plate as possible seemed 
the best way to justify such an outlay. 
Incidentally, if you have ever tried to arrange glads 
in baskets, you must have encountered a prime illus- 
tration of the “ornery-ness of inanimate objects” in re- 
spect to the difficulty of making a spike stay just where 
you wanted it. Last summer I think we found the 
perfect solution to this old problem: rhubarb leaves. 
In addition to water, fill the basket-container tightly 
with crushed-together rhubarb leaves, first removing 
all stems and the larger veins. Then cut your glad stems 
the desired length on the diagonal and spear them 
down into the massed rhubarb leaves at any angle you 
desire and they will stay there to the fraction of an 
inch. If the glad spikes are very heavy, wire screen 
with a one-inch mesh wired across the top of the 
basket will provide the necessary additional control. 
This method is infinitely superior to chicken wire if 
you wish to do a careful, yet rapid, job of arranging. 
This year we are breaking our rule of introducing 
only our own originations to include two new seedlings 
which I consider very outstanding: Gold and Dark 
David. Each is the best thing I have seen in its color 
class and I heartily recommend them both. 
Our SEASON’S HONOR ROLL (excluding my own 
varieties) is as follows: Gold, Dark David, Gorgeous 
Deb, Fire Gleam, Necia, Retta Jo, Gene, Cordova, 
Betty Duncan, Dolly Varden, and Sterling. A variety 
on a previous season’s honor roll is not eligible again. 
Older varieties besides my own that simply outdid 
themselves are: All Glory, Aureole, Babs, Better Times, 
Boulogne, Burma, Conn. Yankee, Fabulous, Firebrand, 
Florence Nightingale, Gaylore, Lady Anne, Manchu, 
Mid-America, Mighty Monarch, Nila, Patrol, Ravel, 
Radiance, Red Plush, Redwing, Salman’s Glory, Sparks, 
Spindrift, Tarawa, and Victory Queen. 
Earliest varieties were: Arethusa, Aristos, Babs, Bet- 
ter Times, Bo-Peep, Brightside, Cupid, Cream Orchids, 
Enchantment, Friendship, Gene, Gratitude, Heart O’ 
Gold, Heavenly White, Huntress, June Day, Lavender 
and Gold, Modern Times, Nocturne, Pactolus, Radiance, 
Rosa van Lima, Rose Charm, Salman’s Glory, Red 
Cherry, Red Plush, Rhett Butler, Starlet, Snow Prin- 
cess, Twinkles, White Lace, Wedgwood and Yellow 
Herald. 
Best Growers from Bulblets were: Beauty’s Blush, 
Evangeline, Florence Nightingale, Gold, Sweet Six- 
teen, Wedgwood, White Christmas, Elmer’s Rose, 
Crown Jewel, Cream Orchids, Mother Fischer, Yellow 
Herald, Mt. Index, Redwing, Rose O’Day, Lovelace, 
Mighty Monarch, and Montpelier. 
We are discarding this year: Antietam, Black Opal, 
Blue Beauty, Casablanca, Chic, Crinkle Cream, Donna, 
Hawkeye Red, Invictus, Lady Jane, Lady Luck, Kelsey, 
Magnolia, Margaret Wood, Marion Pearl, Miss Wiscon- 
sin, New Era, Picardy, Preview, Rita Mae, Silver Gull, 
Snow Flurry, Spun Gold, Sunny Day, Sunspot, Tro- 
cadero, War Paint, and White Gold. 
The Graphic Color Index at the end of this catalog 
was worked out by actually laying out on our lawn 
spikes of nearly every one of the approximately 200 
varieties listed herein and placing each in its logical 
relationship to other colors in sort of a Mercator’s 
projection of the color sphere. This Graphic Color 
Index will aid you in ascertaining the exact color of a 
variety oftentimes better than adjectives. 
We hope you enjoy our improved catalog. Your 
generous patronage made it possible and your kind 
letters have provided much of the inspiration for the 
work that went into it. 
May a kind Providence smile on your 1951 glad 
garden and make it replete with thrills—a joyous 
refuge from a troubled world. 
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