THE NEW MAGIC OF GLAD BREEDING 
Blue Blood (IH) is, to the best of my knowledge, the first inbred hybrid, not only of 
gladiolus but of any vegetatively propagated plant, offered for sale. This includes anything 
produced from bulbs, corms, rootings or cuttings and can be applied as well to potatoes, 
dahlias, lilies, fruit trees, roses and other ornamental trees and shrubs. 
It is the same magic which now is working wonders with varieties of corn, tomatoes 
eggplants, zinnias, hogs, cucumbers, chickens and many other varieties of plants and ani- 
mals. This is the same process used by W. Atlee Burpee & Co., to produce its most highly 
advertised varieties of vegetables and flowers on the famous Fordhook breeding farms. 
WHAT AN INBRED HYBRID GLAD IS 
Inbreeding and hybridizing of the resulting inbreds are processes which are working 
wonders in plant breeding. This applies to breeding of all types of field and vegetable crops 
as well as animals and poultry. First applied to corn, inbred hybrids were considered a 
curiosity in 1932. Today, they account for 80 per cent of the entire U. S. corn crop. 
This is despite the fact that the farmer has to pay in the neighborhood of $10 to $12 
per bushel for seed which he formerly could have for free from his own fields. 
Corn production just after the end of World War II was 300,000,000 bushels greater in 
the United States than in 1932, but this was raised on 23,000,000 acres less land. The 
extra yields resulting from hybrid corn during the World War II years alone were valued 
at two billion dollars, the cost of an A-bomb project, according to Alton L. Blakeslee, Asso- 
ciated Press science reporter! 
Other inbred hybrids are being produced in other fields, with astonishing results. In- 
breeding provides a process whereby the weak recessive traits of a plant or animal can be 
weeded out. Practically absolutely accurate control of the resulting hybrid, when two in- 
breds are crossed, can be obtained through the wonderful uniformity brought about by 
inbreeding. 
A sixth generation inbred will breed 98 per cent true for any one characteristic, such 
as color, height of plant, resistance to disease, drought resistance, etc. A first generation 
inbred will breed 50 per cent true for these characteristics. Compare that with the results 
you have had in hybridizing our present glads with their mixed-up parentages! 
It so happened that I was a boy working for my father when he produced the first com- 
mercial hybrid corn seed crop grown in Indiana about 1927. Professors R. R. St. John and 
John F. Trost, of Purdue University, taught my brother, Eugene, and myself the technique 
of inbreeding and completing the crosses to make inbred hybrids. 
Mr. St. John is now head plant breeder for the DeKalb Agricultural Association, which 
produces in the neighborhood of $30,000,000 worth of hybrid seed corn yearly as well as 
millions of dollars worth of hybrid chickens. Mr. Trost is head plant breeder for the Farm- 
craft Company, another large producer of hybrid seed corn. 
In succeeding years, college professors and other plant breeders have branched into 
many other fields with inbreeding, always with the same astonishing results. Henry Wal- 
lace, who was one of the earliest developers of hybrid corn, left office as vice president of 
the United States to develop hybrid chickens, which are now revolutionizing the poultry 
industry. Agricultural colleges have developed many inbred strains of swine, which are 
doing the same for the hog industry. 
