Say 7t With Glads 
Once again, I extend cordial greetings to all our 
customers and friends! It is a pleasure, indeed, to 
present our 1955 catalogue to you and I hope you find 
it inspiring and interesting. We take joy in sending 
it to you; it has been a labor of love. I also want to 
thank my many customers for their valued patronage 
which has made this catalogue possible. We treasure 
your orders and strive to serve you as best as is 
humanly possible. 
It not only sounds good, but it is true, that we do 
have the largest and cleanest crop of bulbs in our 
many years of growing. We had a very favorable 
growing season up until about September 1. Nature 
was quite generous with its rainfall and additional 
moisture was supplied with our irrigation system when 
needed. Glads certainly respond to that extra boost 
that one can give them with irrigation at crucial times. 
I’d hate to be without it!! Never was our bulb crop so 
far along as it was this year by September 1, and 
providential it was, for growth stopped about this time. 
From then on it rained and rained and rained! We 
had one week of sunshine in September and another 
in October. Most of the crop was mudded out; the 
trays of bulbs were half moist earth! We would have 
been stymied here had we not been equipped to wash 
and quick dry every bulb as fast as they came in from 
the field. Now, as I check the bulbs after cleaning, I 
can’t help but admire their beauty and brightness in 
the trays. All bulbs were dipped in a spergon-DDT 
solution before they were dried. We have received 
many letters from our customers attesting to the fine 
quality of our bulbs and the results that they got from 
them. I am sure that you will be even more pleased 
with the bulbs you receive this year. 
We try to list the very best varieties in existence. 
Just because a certain glad is not on our list is no 
proof that it is not a good one. We usually don’t list 
expensive introductions until they come down in price. 
Glads perform differently in various sections of the 
country and in different circumstances from year to 
year. We spend a considerable amount of money on 
new varieties for our trial grounds. It is our policy 
to absorb the disappointments rather than to pass 
them on to our customers. 
Glads are not just a business at Noweta Gardens or 
a means of earning a livelihood. They are also a 
means of supplying a hobby that brings cheer and a 
joy of living into your home. 
That is why we take so much pleasure in bringing 
to you our unusual catalogue and try to do all we can 
to make glads as a hobby as pleasurable as possible 
for our customers. 
To fall in love with some aspect of God’s creation, 
such as flowers, invests them with a charm otherwise 
unrealized. This is the state of affairs prosaically 
known as “having a hobby.” So much of one’s own 
happiness, and so much of the opportunity to create 
happiness for others, depends on having worthwhile 
hobbies. Thus it becomes important to choose one’s 
hobbies wisely and not to limit one’s self to one. Nat- 
urally, flowers seem to me to constitute the ideal sub- 
jects for hobbies and while I do not want to put one 
flower ahead of another, I do think that every flower 
lover ought to grow some glads. Never was nature 
in a more generous mood than when she created the 
gladiolus. How easily—if one has but a small glad 
garden or even a single row of glads in one’s vegetable 
garden — how easily one can cut whole armsful of 
glorious color—especially those ravishing pinks which 
are nearly everyone’s favorite—to bring into the house 
for home decoration or to give to appreciative neigh- 
bors. There’s no nicer way to “say it with flowers”’— 
no more colorful, more generous way—than to “say 
it with glads.” 
I hate to drop down to mundane things. but we do 
have to face them, don’t we? Hobbies can be expen- 
sive, but in this regard I am happy to say that of all 
the hobbies I know, glad-growing seems to be the most 
self-financing. Every year customers write in to tell 
us how many glads they have sold as cut-flowers— 
$200 from a city lot, etc. Often stay-at-homes earn 
substantial sums in this fashion. It’s better than tak- 
ing subscriptions to magazines because your customers 
come to you instead of your having to go to them. 
Our seedling show, held in the basement of our 
local Congregational church, was a grand success. Carl 
Starker was here and filled the hall with those original 
and stunning dramas in flowers as only Carl Starker 
can. Each year we plan our show for the last Sunday 
of July. My customers and their friends are cordially 
invited to attend this gladiolus festival. If you are 
from a distance get in contact with us first as we had 
Centra! International Show visitors viewing our fields on the morning of the second day of the show. 
