INTRODUCTORY 
(and Variety Previews) 
With this catalog, our fifteenth annual issue, we again take pleasure in 
presenting a careful selection of fine Gladiolus varieties. Modern hybridizers 
are giving us some wonderful new glads to enjoy. Most of the newer intro- 
ductions have beautifully ruffled, frilled, or fluted flowers, and the various new 
shades and combinations of colors are truly entrancing. We hope you will 
try some of the newer varieties this season—in every way they are grand im- 
provements over most of the older sorts. Whether you grow glads to win 
blue ribbons and championship rosettes at the shows, for high-quality cut 
flowers, or just for your own pleasure and to share with friends, you are sure 
to find new gardening thrills in growing the newer glads! 
Due to the extended drought in many parts of the country, large-size bulbs 
may be quite scarce this year. Though we had plenty of irrigation water 
and harvested one of our largest and best crops of bulbs, fall and early winter 
orders have depleted our stocks of large bulbs in some varieties. However, 
as most experienced glad growers know, medium bulbs of number three size 
(the size we send out on orders for mediums as long as they last) will often 
produce just as good or even better flowers than extremely large bulbs. Even 
a number four or number five bulb will make a very creditable spike in most 
varieties, though usually with a somewhat shorter stem and fewer total 
buds on the spike. 
If you have never ordered bulbs from us, may we suggest a trial order 
this year? We try to be quite generous with “extras,” selected from the 
better new varieties, for you to try, but of course our main concern is to send 
out 100% clean, healthy stock that will produce the high-quality flowers you 
have a right to expect. Remember, poorly grown or diseased bulbs are not 
cheap at any price! Approximately three-fourths of our annual business 
comes from old customers who “repeat” from year to year because they like 
our bulbs and service. Among these are many big-name Show growers, some 
well-known commercial growers, and a lot of ordinary home gardeners and 
glad fans who look to us for the top gladiolus varieties as they are introduced. 
We try out hundreds of new varieties and seedlings each year, listing in our 
catalog only those which seem to us most distinctive and outstanding. 
We hope our catalog will be of help to you in making selections for your 
1954 glad garden. Perhaps the following candid and condensed comments may 
help you to visualize the various glads in the different color classes: 
WHITE (Color Classes 00-01). WHITE CLOUD tops this class for beauty, 
although its seedling, the 1954 introduction KING COTTON may eventually 
head all the whites for all-around utility, and it is almost as beautiful. Both 
are truly white-whites! WHITE SYMPHONY and WHITE GODDESS, 
slightly older varieties, are fine for exhibition. Both have a touch of cream 
in the center. CRYSTAL ORCHID should do well on the show table, and 
MOTHER FISCHER is already a well-known winner. PAULINE, though a 
little on the plain side, seems to be a reliable grower and its color is very 
pure. PRESTO and CRUSADER are the only blotched whites we grow, but 
watch for the new QUEEN ANNE. We had this in our trial garden, and it 
appeared to be a much improved Margaret Beaton. WHITE LACE is a lovely 
medium sized white glad, and DAINTINESS is well named; a much smaller 
White Lace with a creamy yellow center and white stamens. Very chaste 
and lovely. 
