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it is a flower for all people and all places. It is suitable for the home, and from midsummer until November is a constant dependence. For stores and offices its bright and lasting bloom makes it very desirable. It is in great demand for ornamenting churches, halls, schoolrooms, and, in fact, all places where people come together for almost any purpose. It is popular for weddings, and great quantities are often used on such occasions, a single order sometimes calling for thousands of spikes. Last of all, it is seen in the house of mourning, and at the graves of the dead, where its sweet cheerfulness seems to speak a message of comfort to the living.
Habits of Growth.
The gladiolus is a bulbous plant that grows only in the warm season of the year. It may be grown from bulbs, bulblets, or seeds. Amateurs have to do mainly with bulbs, as their chief object is to produce flowers. The bulb contains the food for the nourishment of the young plant until it has leaves, when it commences to form a new bulb close above the old one, which latter gradually shrivels and dies, its work being done. Meanwhile, the young plant, having roots and leaves of its own, continues to grow and build up the new bulb.
When far enough advanced, the flower spike starts up through the middle of the foliage and makes its appearance above the upper leaf. From the time the spike comes in sight, the plant seems to devote the most of its energy to developing the flowers, and the seed which follows. When the latter is allowed to ripen, the bulb is smaller than it otherwise would have been, and not only this, it is vertically thin, having been partially starved by the diverting of the nourishment to ripen the seed. On the other hand, if the spike is removed when the first flower opens, the bulb will grow larger and thicker. Other things being equal, a bulb is valuable according to its vertical diameter. The most perfect ones are obtained by planting small ones, just below the blooming size. Not being able to send up flower spikes, their vitality goes to the production of new bulbs, and these are conical, or nearly round, which is the ideal shape. Many florists insist upon this form when buying bulbs for forcing. They are known to the trade as virgin bulbs. As to the breadth of bulbs, the broader the better, other points being the same. One that is conical in shape, and three-fourths of an inch in horizontal diameter, will probably produce as fine a spike of flowers as is possible to the variety, but it will yield only one, while bulbs of larger size may send up from two to six.
Bulblets are produced during the summer, on underground stems that come out from the base of the new bulbs. Each bulblet is enclosed in a hard shell, which is generally brown in color, though sometimes gray, slate, or black, and very rarely white.
Just here I will speak of the difference between bulblets and small bulbs, for there are some confused ideas abroad on this subject. Bulblets grow from the bottoms of bulbs, are usually attached by stems, and have hard shells. Bulbs grow from other bulbs, from bulblets, or from seeds, and have soft shells. They may be very tiny, no larger than apple seeds, but still they are bulbs.
Varieties differ widely in their ability to produce bulblets. The May and Augusta are exceedingly prolific, while the Shakespeare is just the opposite. A bulb too small to bloom will yield many times more bulblets than a large one of the same variety. Sometimes as many as two hundred bulblets have been found on a single bulb.
Corm and cormel are the correct botanical terms respectively for solid bulbs, like those of the gladiolus, and the small underground increase, but these names are rarely used in commercial horticulture.
Soils and Preparation.
The gladiolus will grow on almost any soil, and do well with only a moderate chance. While it has its preferences, it readily adapts itself to circumstances, and makes the most of what it finds. Whether sand, clay, gravel, muck or loam, it will get a living out of them, though gravel is perhaps least desirable. The gladiolus withstands drouth very well, but likes plenty of moisture much better, and low land well drained is excellent for it. It ought not to be under water. Good farm land, suitable for corn or potatoes, answers its purpose very well, and it flourishes on green sward properly plowed and harrowed. The richest place in the garden suits it admirably, and it shows its appreciation of special favors by ready response in growth and bloom.
The ground should be plowed or spaded to a good depth, about the same as for potatoes, and harrowed or raked until it is thoroughly pulverized, not only on the surface, but down deep.
Fertilizers.
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