296 Appendix. 



on to fresh pastures. And besides the common law would reach such a case .iust 

 as well as any special law. A dealer selling trees that he knew to be untrue to 

 name, or that were flagrantly misnamed and fraudulent, whether he knew it or 

 not, can be punished just as well with the laws we now have as he could be if 

 we were to enact a whole code of new and stringent laws. 



A reputable nursery firm always suffers more in loss of business from mistakes 

 and errors than does the purchaser, and consequently they use great care to avoid 

 them. To repeat what I have said before, if the buyer uses due caution, he is 

 running but very small risk at the present time of being defrauded in the buying 

 of any kind of nursery stock. 



TRUE TO REPRESENTATION. 



I approve of the plan of selling direct to the consumer through your own 

 agents. Every one recognizes that this is an efficient way to sell, at least, for I 

 believe there is nothing on earth before which the average farmr is so helpless as an 

 urbane, oily-tongued tree agent. For my part, I know that when I see one 

 coming I am in for it, and will surely capitulate before he is through with me. 

 All I can do is to nerve myself to get off as light as possible. 



There are always many people who would not buy at all unless an agent 

 came to them, even though they were in need of trees and really wanted them, 

 but they would just neglect to send for them. 



But there is one point in regard to your selling in this way through agents 

 that I would like to enter a protest n.^ainst, and that is in regard to your agents 

 making, many times, such extravagant claims and statements. Of course that 

 is a hard matter for you to regulate, but I notice that they generally back up 

 these rosy, glowing statements by still more rosy, glowing cuts, prints and circulars 

 and these latter must come from the firm that employs them. Perhaps I am 

 mistaken, but it seems to me that an agent always carries an exagerated outfit in 

 whatever line he may be working. You nursery agents show more fancy pictures 

 and make far more fancy claims for your goods than you put in your general cata- 

 logue for distribution. I know you may claim that this is what people want ; that 

 you could not sell goods otherwise, but I can not agree with this idea. I know that 

 for my part I don't want to have to discount one of your catalogues every 

 time I consult one as I would a circus poster, a real estate boomer's ad., or 

 one of John A. Salter's seed catalogues. I like to read what I feel to be some- 

 where near the truth, and I want to see that you are making fair conservative 

 statements about well-known varieties, for then I will have confidence in' your 

 statements regarding new varieties, and I believe that most other people feel 

 about the same way. 



BETTER AND FEWER KINDS. 



And then we have entirely too many varieties. It seems sometimes as though 

 the fruit-growing world were mad on the subject of new varieties of fruit. As 

 Bob Burdette says : "Of the 30.000 new words contained in the latest dictionary. 

 18,000 of them are the names of new varieties of strawberries." 



As there are not over twenty-five or thirty varieties of apples of really first- 

 class merit, and as no single orchardist should grow more than five or six of 

 these, why is it necessary for you to grow and catalogue fifty to a hundred 

 varieties? Most of you already know just what varieties are best adapted to. your 

 respective communities, or if not you can easily ascertain. Post yourselves thor- 

 oughly ; get opinions of successful orchardists, and the experiment stations to 

 liack you, and then grow only the best of such varieties as succeed well in your dis- 

 tricts, and lend your influence to Induce growers to plant only such trees. I 

 know you will say this it not your business ; you are growing to supply what is 

 called for, not what ought to be called for. But this is short-sighted and not 

 your true policy. As I said before, the foundation of the fruit business depends 

 upon you, and it is your business to furnish us a better foundation, the best to be 

 had. You stand in the van and must lead on. 



