Beginning and Growth of Nursery Business. 293 



nurserymen by that time were finding customers in California who would take 

 carload lots of trees, and there was a sudden great increase in the demand for 

 trees in Oregon, Washington and Idaho. The tree-planting boom reached its 

 highest point about 1892, and the great demand for trees, and comparatively high 

 prices obtained for them, induced a large number of men to engage in the business, 

 many of whom, unfortunately, were not fitted by training, or in other ways, to 

 be nurserymen. 



COLLAPSE AND EEOHGANIS^ATION. 



The sudden collapse of the boom in ls93-1894 was disatrous to nurserymen. 

 Trees were offered for sale at prices which would hardly pay for digging and 

 crating or oxing them. 



The terrible depression in the business not only drove the unfit out of the 

 field, but almost or quite brolce up those who deserved to fare better. This 

 ■disaster, however, paved the way for a development of the nursery business of the 

 ■State which would never have been possible under the method of doing business 

 which prevailed prior to the crash. Under the old system the nurserymen made 

 BO systematic effort to sell trees direct to planters. They depended mainly on 

 catalogues for the sale of their trees, and most of the sales were to local dealers 

 in trees, who usually styled themselves nurserymen, or agents for nurserymen, but 

 were in fact only retail sellers. 



The hard times brought new blood into the business, and with it the methods 

 which the experience of successful nurserymen of older states have found essential 

 to success. The business was pushed and customers were developed. 



The nursery business in Oregon may be said to have been fairly on its feet 

 again in 1900. since that time its development has been remarkably rapid. The 

 more enterprising nurserymen of the State have worked up the sale of Oregon- 

 grown nursery stock throughout all the great expanse of country, from Alberta and 

 Manitoba on the north to Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and even old Mexico on the 

 south. The business of a single nursery provides employment for more persons 

 than any other one industry at the Capital City of the State, a place of over 12 000 

 inhabitants. 



The nursery business now brings more money into the State than any other 

 one horticultural line, excepting apples and prunes. 



GROWTH NOT DUE TO BOOMING, 



The great growth of the business in the past four years has not been 

 due to any boom in orcharding. In a former period of growth nurseries multi- 

 plied and their business grew because of a craze for orchard planting. The 

 growth of the last period has been the result of the efforts of the nurserymen 

 themselves, who have systematically worked up a demand for trees, and have 

 pushed into new and undeveloped regions and created there a demand which 

 they were prepared to supply. The leading nurseries of the State are now con- 

 ducted with the thorough organization and systematic methods which are char- 

 acteristic of all great modern enterprises. The change from the old system 

 to the new worked a hardship on some of the worthy nurserymen of the old 

 regime, but it was a change which meant progress, and placed the nursery busi- 

 nese of the State fully abreast of the times. 



From tlie starting point to the present time the nurserymen of Oregon have 

 been factors of great importance in promoting the welfare of the people of the 

 State and adding to the wealth of the State as a whole. 



The limits of this paper do not permit reference to the very valuable work 

 ■which has been done by Oregon nurserymen in originating and propagating new 

 fruits which have proved of great value. 



