Dic =DuNG 
PUBLISHED BY 
WAYLAND DAHLIA GARDENS 
iE. R. & H. M. Ryno, Props. 
Wayland, Michigan 
SEASON OF 1951 
A Special Offer 
We. ccnsider the ball type of dahlia 
about the best of all for florist’s and 
amateur gaidener’s planting. It is 
usual.y a very rank grower, produces 
an abundance of blooms from 38% to 
5 inches in diameter, and keeps after 
cutting as well as. any of the small 
flowering types or pompons and min- 
iatures. Besides these points, the ball 
type is usually the best root maker 
and the roots keep the best of all 
types. This is an important point es- 
pecially with the amateur or grower 
who has to keep his roots in the or- 
dinary ce.lar or storage room. 
For years we have made quite a 
heavy planting of ball dahlias and in 
1947-48 when most of our crop was 
lost because of the immaturity due 
to early frost we were very much 
pleased to find that this type came 
through as a life-saver for us. 
From our own experience we, there- 
fore, believe that it is really good 
policy to encourage the planting of 
pall type dahlias and as a special 
inducement to our customers to in- 
clude a collection of this type of dah- 
lias in their list we are making a 
special offer as follows: If you in- 
clude 4 or more ball type dahlias in 
a collection and can use not less than 
200 collections (that is, not less than 
200 of each variety) we will supply 
these roots at 5c each in the following 
varieties only: 
RED CHIEF, red 
A. D. LIVONI, pink 
YELLOW DUKE, yellow 
STORM KING, white 
FLORAL PARK JEWEL, red tip- 
ped white 
VIVIAN, white tipped purple 
PURPLE BALL, purple 
ORANGE BALL, orange 
BONNIE BLUE, bluish 
MRS. C. D. ANDERSON, crimson 
mauve 
Here you have the ten best varie- 
ties of ball dahl’as grown and a col- 
lection of any six of them would cost 
you only 30c and would make a real- 
ly wonderful bargain at $1—actually 
pre-war price. 
The: self liquidating advertising 
proposition is coming to be of con- 
siderable interest to many of the lar- 
ger advertisers in such lines as soaps, 
cereals, etc. Many of these concerns 
are offering perennial plants, garden 
seeds, gladioli bulbs, etc. at a special 
price. In this connection dahlias have 
never been offered, largely because of 
the fact that roots were not obtain- 
able in- sufficient quantities to make 
it safe for an advertiser to offer them 
over the radio or through widespread 
newspaper and magazine advertising 
where returns might run into thou- 
sands or even hundreds of thousands. 
With our extensive planting we 
are prepared to handle this sort of 
proposition and would be glad to work 
out a deal with you along any line 
in which you are interested. We can 
mail directly from here or through 
one of our regular seed house cus- 
tomers or can supply stock for direct 
shipment from your own point if so 
desired. 
In making up a list of varieties for 
mail o:der or catalog trade it is quite 
important for you to consider the 
availability of the different varieties 
usted. New varieties are being 
brought out every year and as many 
of these .are listed in the various 
Honor Rolls published in the lead- 
ing flower magazines there is a 
strong tendency toward listing these 
new varieties in your own catalog. 
If you issued a thousand catalogs 
this would be all right. You could in- 
clude aimost any variety in your list 
because you wouldn’t sell more than 
a few roots of a kind; but when you 
come to issue from a million to a mil- 
lin and a half or more copies,as many 
of our customers do, you have to have 
thousands of roots of each variety 
listed available and this means sev- 
eral years growing after a variety is 
introduced. 
We try out practically all the new 
varieties as soon as they are offered 
and if they make good under field cu.- 
ture we list them just as soon as we 
have enough of them to make them 
of interest to our class of trade. If 
you will look over the list of var- 
-eties we offer you will find in- 
cluded therein the very best dahlias 
which have ever been produced. Near- 
ly all of those listed at 10c or more 
each are Honor Roll varieties which 
are generally recognized as those 
having the highest ratings in the 
trial grounds. P 
In this connection it might be weil 
for us to say something about prices. 
‘Lhe price of a dahlia has absolutely 
nothing to do with its real qualities. 
We base our prices solely upon cost 
oi production. Many ox. the factors 
entering into this cost are staple and 
the same for all varieties. Hor ex- 
ample, rent, fitting the ground, plant- 
ing, fertilizing, cultivation and har- 
vesting cost exactly the same for one 
va.lety as for another. The newer 
a variety is the higher the cost of 
planting stock and the more roots a 
variety produces the lower the cost of 
the resultant crop. Varieties which 
have been on the market for a number 
of years and which have been uni- 
formiy good root producers, such as 
The Commodore, etc., are naturally 
grown at a lower cost than varieties 
which are poor keepers such as Lord 
of Autumn, ete., yet I do not think 
there is any better large yellow dec- 
orative than The Commodore regard- 
less of price. We were the first growers 
to offer this variety in large quar- 
tities for catalog trade and I think 
the Inter-State Nurseries were our 
first customers for this variety and 
the first to list it in a catalog of large 
circulation. Today you find it in near- 
ly every dahlia list and a highly re- 
garded variety in every part of the 
country. 
(Continued from first page) 
Here you have a perfect example 
of what we referred to as a Pattern 
for Permanency. Quality will always 
stand long after price is forgotten. 
‘Thinking along this 
am wondering which course the tel- 
evision will take. Will it go like the 
bicycle with competition in price only 
resulting in its own ruination or will 
it follow the course of the automobile 
with competition in quality giving 
permanency and_ stability to the in- 
dustry ? 
In presenting dahlias all these 
points should be considered. Every- 
bedy likes dahlias because they are 
really the most responsive of all 
flowers to individual cultural effort. 
Once you get a man started with some 
of the newer and larger varieties and 
he immediately becomes a fan who 
is looking for still newer, still larger 
and still better varieties. When you 
gct him to this point he “stays put.” 
NOTE THIS 
Dahlias 
Be sure each dahlia tuber has an eye 
(A) where it joins last year's stem, 
or it won't grow. Tuber (B) should 
feel plump or rubbery, never soft or 
mushy. Buy top grade and ignore size 
and shape (C) of tubers since varieties 
often differ greatly in this respect 
BETTER HOMES & GARDENS, MARCH, 1950 
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