10 STATE nORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Undoubtedly some nurserymen have injured their reputation for weli-grown 

 stock by selling at a discount that which they might liave more wisely destroyed, 

 or by undertaking to do more than they could well accomplish Mith means at 

 their command; and probaljly tliis failure to fully " count tiio cost" is the 

 cause of very mucli disappointment in many other business enterprises. 



Tiie question with the nurseryman sliould be, not how many trees can I 

 crowd into that plat of ground and grow them in a hap-hazard sort of way, 

 aud so undersell all my competitors? but how can I grow the best stock, and 

 that which, when it comes to bear will bo the best for my customers? The 

 question with the planter should not be, where can I obtain the cheapest trees, 

 and on the longest possible time? but where can I get the best and most relia- 

 ble trees for cash? for you may rest assured that no nurseryman can conduct 

 a successful business whose capital stock is watered every spring and fall with 

 slow notes. It should be a rule with every man to "patronize home institu- 

 tions," especially if he can get just as good goods for the same money as else- 

 where; and if our planters would persist in doing this, thousands of dollars 

 which now go out of the State for trees would be used in the development of 

 the nursery business in Michigan, which in the not very far distant future 

 might compare well with that of of any other locality. 



B. W. Steere gave some instances where planters of trees often used no care 

 when trees were taken out of tiie ground before they arc put iu again, and 

 when they died often blamed the nurseryman. 



Professor Beal : Any man who reads the reports of the discussions in our 

 society as written out in our annual volumes will not abuse his nursery stock 

 in transplanting. 



Mr. Lyon : It is of great importance in selecting nursery stock to get that 

 which has been thoroughly ripened. Oftentimes stock is entirely ruined for 

 transplanting by reason of late rapid growth in the fall. 



Secretary Garfield: I believe in ^lichigan planters as far as i)racticable 

 buying Michigan nursery stock ; and upon this theory, that if a tree is to be 

 transplanted the shorter the distance of removal and the greater the care in 

 its transportation, the less chance the tree will take. I do not say this to push 

 up or pull down any nurseryman. If I lived in Ohio I should say buy Ohio 

 stock ; if in New York, buy New York stock. Buy always of the nearest repu- 

 table nurseryman who has what you want, even if you have to pay a little more 

 for it. I say this, too, knowing that some ignoramuses buy stock at a near 

 nursery, throw it into a lumber wagon, drive home in a bright sun or a dry 

 wind, and lose all their trees, and curse the nurseryman; and buy thereafter of 

 some foreigner wlio knows how to pack trees, and as a result succeed better. 

 But as Professor Beal says, when I advise men I also tell them where they can 

 get the desired information that will lead them to avoid the blunders of igno- 

 rance, by referring them to the discussions in our volumes. 



Porter Beal : (Jan Michigan nursery stock be grown of as much hardiness 

 as that imported from States a little south of us? 



Mr. Mann: I have yet to find any proof to the contrary. I believe stock 

 grown here is just as hardy, of the same varieties, as can be grown anywhere. 



Mr. Steere : 1 don't see why this should not be the case, because in our native 

 forests in Michigan wo have the greatest variety of trees of any State I know, 

 and the difrerent sorts succeed well. If this is true of native trees, wliy should 

 it not 1)0 true of the average stock in nursery rows in the same climate? 



Mr. ^lontgomery: I think too many nurserymen, in order to get nice, 



