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A second sifting through a number three sieve separates the bulblets from the bulbs. The latter are then spread out an inch or two deep in crates, and dried in the shade, after which the depth may be doubled for storage until cleaning time. The bulblets are poured into a box or barrel.
The work of harvesting is described at length under the head of "Digging and Curing." There is one curious fact connected with bulblets, which is worth mentioning.
For convenience in taking up small stock, we use a low seat made like a small sled with wide runners which do not sink into the ground. A burlap sack is folded several thicknesses and tacked on the top for a cushion. This seat, a spading fork, a garden trowel, and a half-bushel basket lined with cloth to keep the bulblets from passing through, are the appliances needed for the work.
The next year these are planted, and in turn make larger bulbs, of blooming size, perfect in form, and capable of yielding spikes of flowers that will be an honor to the varieties from which they were grown. The first example shows why bulbs deteriorate when only bulbs are saved, and the second, how to keep them up to a high standard of vigor by renewing them from time to time with bulblets.
Nearly all such cases may be accounted for by considering that some varieties multiply very much faster than others, both by bulblets and the formation of new bulbs. If one bulb produces a hundred bulblets, another ten, and another one or perhaps none, it is easy to foresee what will happen in a few years.
The old bulbs are taken off by hand and cast aside, carrying the roots with them, and the bulblets that still remain fall through the sieve into the basket below. The cleaned bulbs are dropped into another basket and then stored in crates to await the time for grading. The bulblets are put away in a cool, damp place.
I had a choice lot and the work amounted to over thirty dollars. I found that there was a difference in girls. Some did the work carefully and others bruised or wounded the tender kernels. The bulblets were put away in the cellar, and in a short time they became a moldy mass.
The boxes may be a foot or more wide and 18 to 20 inches long, and should be new and clean. On no account grow gladiolus seeds or bulblets successive years in the same pots or boxes without sterilization, lest disease be fostered. Boxes should have at least one-half-inch drainage hole to each sixteen square inches of bottom surface, as gladiolus seedlings greatly dislike waterlogged soil.
E. V. Hallock of Long Island, New York, one of the most experienced and skillful growers in the country, gave me an important item of information, which explained my failure and revived my interest in the subject. This was the secret: "The bulblets should be peeled the same day they are planted." Mr. Hallock also gave me some valuable hints on cultivation.
Some of them will sprout in storage, which, of course, is not to be desired, but it is better to lose the few that will grow too soon by dampness than the many that will be kept from growing at all by drying. The ideal place for storing bulblets is a root cellar, or underground room not connected with any building, which is securely closed after the stock is put in, and not opened till spring.
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