Fua With Glades 
People may be divided into those who are always 
trying to “kill time” in an effort to escape boredom 
and those who have learned the secret of getting so 
much pleasure and satisfaction out of life that there 
are not enough hours in the day to accomplish all they 
wish to do. The latter are an enviable lot. Surely 
all successful hobbyists, and unquestionably all glad 
fans, belong in this latter happy group. 
Speaking of hobbies, there is no law restricting a 
person to only one. If you have some hobby other 
than glads which does not take up all your spare time, 
why not try glads, too? They are the ideal hobby- 
flower, flourishing in any good garden soil without 
special pampering, giving armsful of glorious color 
with a generosity unknown to any other flower, and 
lending themselves to fascinating arrangements for 
home decoration. 
Early in September of last year I took an auto trip 
East and was amazed to see how many gardens all 
along the way had generous plantings of glads. It was 
a pleasure to see how many people are really having 
“fun with glads”. 
Most of us can use a few more spare dollars than we 
have, as well as some more pleasure, and glads can be 
a wonderful help in that way, too. Each year people 
write us telling us that they made several hundred 
dollars selling glads as cut-flowers in their locality— 
either to florists or retail to their neighbors. Either 
way, good spikes, such as anyone can raise in an 
ordinary vegetable garden with a little water in dry 
spells, bring about $1 per dozen, and many glad hobby- 
ists sell all they can raise. Medium-sized bulbs from 
our wholesale list are the best investment for cut- 
flowers, giving nice stretchy spikes. Our rating system 
will tell you the best varieties to buy. Be sure to 
plant for succession of bloom. 
Advance indications suggest that glad bulbs will be 
in brisk demand this year. A friend who issues no 
catalog but grows only for the wholesale market re- 
ports receiving an order for 900,000 bulbs. The severe 
drouth in the East and South has no doubt reduced 
the bulb supply. We ourselves were extraordinarily 
fortunate in respect to weather last summer, receiving 
a good rain about once a week so that irrigation was 
quite unnecessary during the growing season. A dry 
autumn made for beautiful bulbs and easy digging. 
We have the largest crop we ever harvested and bulb 
quality was never better. 
Temperatures were phenomenally equable last sum- 
mer in this area, there being only two days over 90°, 
as I remember, during the entire blooming season. 
This made for high-quality blooms and more than 
usual success in our hybridizing program. Inciden- 
tally, we have met with some very gratifying new color 
breaks among our seedlings, including new-type blues 
with entirely different blood lines than anvone else 
has reported heretofore, a white with dazzling blue 
blotches, and yellows of amazing size, richness, and 
bud-count. 
Following the current horticultural trend, we go in 
for considerable mulching of our glad field. This be- 
ing a dairy country (as well as a corn-belt area), well- 
rotted cow manure is relatively easy to obtain and we 
put scores of tons of it on several acres as a mulch, 
topping it with old straw or hay. By keeping the roots 
cool, the moisture supply more constant, and by pre- 
venting the ground from becoming too packed where 
people walk, mulching pays off with better blooms and 
better propagation. Manure on top of the ground does 
not affect the quality of the bulbs. 
The Central International Glad Show was held at 
Sioux City, Iowa, last summer. Sioux City is on the 
Missouri River, which means that this show was held 
much farther west than ever before. But glads are 
grown everywhere and beautiful spikes from Nebraska, 
Iowa, the Dakotas, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, as 
well as air-expressed blooms from California, Ontario, 
and other distant places, filled the spacious, air-cooled 
hall. Our own exhibit of 25 arrangements and baskets 
won a special award. In addition we won awards on 
ten seedlings, not to mention numerous blues through- 
out the show. If you can get to one of the major glad 
shows in your area next summer, by all means go, 
taking some friends along as a means of spreading the 
glad gospel, and, of course, exhibit, also, if you can. 
I am listing only 188 varieties in our 1953 catalog. 
When more outstanding varieties are available, I will 
list them. Perhaps I am too conservative in giving a 
variety a thorough testing before listing it, but it is 
our policy to absorb disappointments—not to pass them 
on to you. 
Discontinued this year are the following 36 varieties: 
Arethusa, Athene, Autumn Gold, Betty’s Choice, 
Blessed Damosel, Brightside, Butterscotch, Capsicum, 
Daisy Mae, Deborah Sampson, Destiny, Esquire, Ethel 
Cave Cole, Eureka, Fabulous, Gen. Eisenhower, 
Genghis Khan, Gratitude, Heavenly White, La Valle, 
Mansoer, Miss Wisconsin, Mt. Index, Poet’s Dream, 
Redowa, Rose O’Day, Sandman, Silver Wings, Sincer- 
ity. Snow Princess, Spindrift, Victory Queen, Wayfarer, 
White Challenge, and White Christmas. Six of these 
are my own. 
Our SEASON’S HONOR ROLL (excluding my own 
varieties) is as follows: The Rajah, Columbia, C. D. 
Fortnam, Boldface, Pasteline, Kashmir, Lavender 
Beauty, Coral Ace, Sans Souci, and Karen. 
It will be interesting to look back on previous honor 
rolls and see how glads there included have fared. 
Here is the 1952 Honor Roll: Tarawa, Lady Anne, 
Red Velvet, The Roan, King David, Rosy Future, Harry 
Hopkins, October Sunshine, Frosty, Sandman, Qui- 
beron, Leah Gorham, and Wayfarer. 
Our 1951 Honor Roll included: Gold, Dark David, 
Georgeous Deb, Fire Gleam, Necia, Retta Jo, Gene, 
Cordova, Betty Duncan, Dolly Varden, and Sterling. 
Going back one year more, we find on the 1950 
Honor Roll: Strawberry Peach, Carnival, Pactolus, 
Evangeline, Red Cherry, Red Wing, Tivoli, Patrol, 
Cherry Jam, and Sherwood. 
On the whole we seem to have guessed rather well 
as to which were the important varieties, the varieties 
with a future. We still think very well of all these 
varieties, and still list them all, except three: Way- 
farer (which suddenly became very stubby), Sandman 
(a beauty which we can neither propagate nor buy), 
and Cherry Jam (which appears to have outdone itself 
for a single year). 
In conclusion, I want to thank the many hundreds 
of customers who have written us for their heart- 
warming letters which do so much to make being in 
the glad business a source of satisfaction. Even if a 
letter registers a complaint, which isn’t often, we are 
glad to receive it, as it gives us an opportunity to 
rectify an error. 
May your 1953 glad garden outdo in beauty any 
previous year’s. May glads as a hobby enrich your 
leisure time and prove a never-ending source of joy 
and inspiration. 
GEE Geese 
