Some Causes for Failures in Growing Fruit in Nebraska. 91 



This last scheme was worked quite successfully through Knox, 

 Cedar and Dixon counties, and as those counties very seldom raise even 

 a few peaches, it was simply money thrown away on the part of the 

 farmer. 



Seven years ago last spring a man living in northeast Nebraska 

 planted one hundred apple trees, fifty principally Ben Davis, North- 

 western Greening and Wine Sap, bought of an agent representing one 

 of our home nurseries, and the other fifty supposed to be Ben Davis, 

 Northwestern Greening, and Wine Sap, bought of a man claiming to 

 represent a nursery over in Iowa, but in reality a jobber. The trees 

 he bought of the home nursery proved true to name, and last year off 

 of those fifty trees he sold fifty dollars worth of apples, besides filling 

 his cellar for winter use. The other fifty trees have borne a few apples, 

 but there was neither WMne Sap or Northwestern Greening among them. 

 They were all practically worthless except a few Ben Davis, that proved 

 true to name. 



Another man ordered seventy-five dollars worth of trees from a 

 jobber, claiming to represent one of our home nurseries, to be planted 

 next spirng. With the order was sixty plum trees and two hundred 

 grape vines. The plum trees were all Pottawattomie, and the grape 

 vines were Agawam and Elvira. I asked this man why he ordered all 

 one variety of plums and why he ordered those varieties of grapes. He 

 said the salesman claimed to be a partner in the nursery, recommending 

 those fruits to him and told him that the Experiment Station recom- 

 mended those varieties for his locality. 



The tree jobber hurts horticultural interests of the state, because 

 he generally works in the newer parts of the country, where quite a 

 large per cent of the people don't know just how an orchard will per- 

 form in their locality, and if a few of the people are sold inferior 

 stock or stock not adapted to that locality they will become dis- 

 couraged, because, with the average farmer an apple tree is an apple 

 tree, and if one is planted and it don't give the results desired, they will 

 tell you that they have tried and failed, and that settles it with them. 

 The average jobber will in time hurt the reputation of the nursery he 

 is dealing with, because he almost always tells the people that he is 

 representing the nursery direct, and the nursery man has to take about 

 half the blame for the wrong that has been done. 



I don't mean to say that every tree jobber is a rascal, for you will 

 find honest men in almost every business, but there are a great many 

 rascals among them. 



The purchaser of nursery stock should buy his trees from the 

 nearest reliable nursery, and if he buys through an agent he should 

 make sure that this agent is representing the nursery direct, and if he. 



