Ylads yore the Tdeal Hobly-Plower 
Psychologists are recognizing more and more the 
value of hobbies as a means of relaxation from the 
frustrations and tensions of our complex and hectic 
modern life. Thus Dr. Geo. W. Crane in his syn- 
dicated “Worry Clinic” recently devoted almost an en- 
tire column to the value of flowers as a hobby. We 
heartily agree! And though we are lovers of all kinds 
of flowers, it seems to us that glads are just about the 
perfect flower for a hobbyist to specialize in. They 
bloom over a longer period than any other perennial 
and give the most color for the money; they can be 
grown to perfection in a vegetable garden, can be 
mace up into dazzlingly beautiful arrangements, and 
possess an infinite variation in the personality of dif- 
ferent varieties. What’s more, they often become a 
profitable hobby through the sale of cut-flowers. At 
hand is a letter from a customer in Michigan who sold 
$360 worth of glads last year at $1 a dozen in a smail 
town of 1200 population. 
In the Minnesota Glad Fan was printed recently a 
very entertaining account of how one of our Montana 
friends and customers, Mrs. John A. Swanson, found 
both pleasure and profit in her hobby of raising glads. 
The article was called “They Call Me THE GLADIO- 
LUS LADY”. I reprint it herewith by permission: 
“Out here in a sprawling, ugly, frontier town, where 
people are hungry for beauty and few take time to 
create it, we have a gladiolus garden of some 300 of 
the world’s finest varieties. Amazed and incredulous, 
visitors come for miles to see it in blooming time, and 
always there is the comment, “I would never have 
believed you could grow such flowers as these here 
in Cut Bank, if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes!” 
“We are in the center of one of the largest oil and 
gas producing areas in the world and have the most 
abominable weather in America! Many times last 
winter, had your radio been tuned in, you might have 
heard, “Tonight Cut Bank, Montana, is the coldest spot 
in the nation.” The temperature quoted would have 
ranged from 35 to 50 degrees below zero. Wind blows 
continually—a down-draft from the mountains to the 
west; the altitude is about 3500, and the air is very 
dry. Snow has fallen here during every month of the 
year, but we are reasonably sure of three months of 
frost-free weather. ‘There is little or no rain during 
the summer months, so all water has to be supplied 
artificially. 
Planting and Covering Early Cut Flowers: 
ary he ye 
“Late springs telescope the blooming season so 
that early and late varieties bloom all at once—I have 
had Van Gold and Autumn Gold in the same bouquet! 
The earliest varieties will take at least 90 days to 
bloom, so we seldom have more than one brief month 
of bloom. The slow development brings its own com- 
pensation, though—the spikes tower magnificently, 
many of them more than five feet tall; the colors are 
remarkably intense and clear; there is seldom any 
crooking; and the florets themselves, like the four- 
inch pansies I have in late July, are unbelievably 
huge. 
“Wihien we came here at the close of the war, we 
came to work: I to teach Latin and English in the high 
school here and John to work as laboratory technician 
in the oil refinery. Home at last from four years service 
in Alaska, he had an intensified love of flowers in his 
Scandanavian soul; I, too, longed to have a home of 
my own, get my feet on the soil and grow a garden. 
We rented a little log house with a garden spot some- 
what sheltered from the everlasting wind, and pre- 
pared to raise our own fresh vegetables, “And,” John 
would say wistfully, “a few gladiolus.” 
“The history of that garden is a story in itself. We 
owe a great deal to the accommodating Blackfoot 
Indian on whose ranch a few miles from town we 
spied a huge pile of fertilizer. When approached, he 
was generous. “Sure,” he said, “take all you want. It 
is three or four years old, and I would be glad to be 
rid of it.” We took him at his word and carted home 
many trailer loads of the precious stuff, while he 
beamed upon us benevolently. 
“Last year we bought a new home and prepared a 
new garden spot, calling again upon our Indian friend. 
We haven’t yet made an appreciable dent in the 
great pile—there is enough there for the next twenty 
years. We planted over 500 bulbs, using part of a 
friend’s garden for bulblets and planting stock. This 
year our “few gladiolus” have mushroomed to seven 
or eight thousand. 
“It is an expensive hobby, indulged in at that rate, 
so at the close of the first year, when we had proved 
that we could raise them here, I determined to make 
it pay for itself. One florist offered me 75 cents a 
dozen, although he was selling inferior stock, shipped 
in, for six dollars a dozen. I decided to find, or make, 
other outlets. 
Left to Right: My Foreman, Arnold Franz, 
Louis Skidmore, LaVon Laack, Yours Truly, Bernard Swiggum. 
