SOCIETY OF NORTHERN ILLINOIS. 359 



only after thorough investigation. The grounds are now ready 

 for the nursery-man. I can assure you he is there on time. Sup- 

 pose him to be one of the "experience-not-necessary" kind of 

 agents. He has a catalogue and a plate book. He has no practi- 

 cal knowledge: has confused ideas of the contents of his catalogue 

 and has to read the name under each plate before he can tell what 

 it represents, but he possesses unlimited gall and the gift of gab» 

 The owner of the place knows little more, perhaps not so much. 

 His family have procured several catalogues. Catalogues describ- 

 ing stock adapted to a range of country extending from the Arctic 

 Circle to the Torrid Zone. This is necessarily so, as catalogues 

 are for general purposes and wide distribution. From these cata- 

 logues they have made up a list, not two articles in ten of which 

 should be planted in the section of the country where their home 

 is located. They do not know this nor does the agent (experience 

 not necessary.) The agent agrees with them, enlarges upon their 

 their ideas, crowds upon them all he can of everything possible and 

 goes his way rejoicing in the consciousness of having made a large 

 sale. 



A year's time elapses and now look at that place. The stock 

 was delivered and planted. Stock, the majority of which would 

 grow luxuriantly — somewhere else. A grievous disappointment 

 has resulted: another bitter enemy of nursery-men been made. 

 Hard and long continued work will be necessary by the ablest of 

 salesmen to overcome that prejudice and secure an order that shall 

 right the wrong committed in the beginning. 



"Experience not necessary" to sell nursery stock ! Well, Idon't 

 know that it is to sell the stock ; but to have each place wherein it 

 is planted a living,. glowing advertisement of the firm from which 

 it came, experience seems to me to be the most important factor. 

 The itinerant dealer in nursery stock needs attention, as one who 

 has done as much, if not more, to bring the nursery business into 

 bad odor with the public than any other. In this class are many 

 reputable dealers and it is needless to say that in what follows I 

 do not refer to them, but to the tramps in the trade who dare not 

 remain in one section long enough to have the stock develop its 

 true character. We have seen many of them around Chicago and 

 the usual term of their existence is two seasons, fall and spring 

 deliveries. But another crop springs up to take the places of those 

 gone before, and the same dear old public listens to their claims 

 and believes their promises. And their claims as to what they 

 have done in the past, and their promises as to the future, make 

 an advertisement of the powers of a "seventh daughter of a 

 seventh daughter" seem very truth in comparison. No salesman 

 who cannot or will not make such promises but has lost many 

 valuable orders by reason of them ; and I can readily understand 

 how an agent, selling on commission, brought into competition 



