HYBRID GLADIOLI.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXI, Issue LXII, 11 May 1912, Page 9

HYBRID GLADIOLI.

Eight years of patient work in hybridwmc gladioli have resulted in Mr C 1. Alkemade, a Dutch bulb grower, of JNoordwijk, near Leyden, making a small fortune with a new and beautiful form says an Amsterdam correspondent He has sold several single bulbs for sums varying up to £23. and has just disposed of 21b. or bulbs for £1666. The new gladiolus, called Glory of Noordwijk, is of a rare hue of soft, light yellow, with twelve^ flowers on one stem, measuring trom live to seven inches in diameter. Mr Alkemade, who is a nurseryman in a comparatively small way, has told the romance of his triumph, which is the outcome of an original outlay of 13s 4d on seed. "I bought some seed of a yellow variety of gladiolus," he said, "with the intention to produce a new variety I sowed the seeds in the open field, and fertilised the flowers with pollen of other kinds. The new bulbs thus obtained I mixea with others, and so on, making several hundred experiments before I got the Glory of Noordwijk."