76 STATE HORTICULTURAL, SOCIETY. 



good conscience would quit a business which compelled him to be the 

 chief assistant to a boss swindler, for a paltry sum of money, and I am 

 pleased to know that some of our best nurserymen will not do any busi- 

 ness of this kind, but prepare to burn large quantities of well grown stock 

 along with their culls every spring, rather than swindle their customers by 

 any of these methods. 



I hope I shall not be misunderstood in this matter, as I do not wish to 

 say anything disrespectful of any honest nurseryman; but when we look 

 around us, or call out the experience of our neighbors, we find that a 

 large majority of the trees set in the state, by our farmers, prove very dis- 

 appointing, in a manner that points to the nurseryman, his agents, or his 

 accomplice, the dealer, as the guilty ones. 



One instance near my home is the case of one of the original members 

 of this society who has an orchard of 1,500 peach trees, containing 500 

 bought for Crawfords, from one of the largest and most reputable nurser- 

 ies in the country; but they proved to be a small "cling," so late that they 

 have only ripened one year in three. This order was evidently filled under 

 the substitution clause. In my own case, the first 200 peach trees in my 

 orchard only contained twelve trees of tbe varieties ordered — balance sub- 

 stituted, to my loss; yet I ordered these trees of a nursery at Toledo sup- 

 posed to be reliable, and the order forbade substitution. The next lot 

 of 1,700 trees was bought more carefully, in this state, and there was no 

 substitution, and there are not more than twenty trees that are not true 

 to their name; but I purchased them of men whom I knew to be honest. 



One of the worst deals I know of occurred in the town of Bainbridge, 

 Berrien county. Two dealers, having secured the confidence of the farm- 

 ers, sold nearly all the trees planted in the town for three years, by selling 

 them well-grown stock. The past season the three and four-year old trees 

 came into bearing and the yellows commissioner of that town informs 

 me that not one tree in ten proves true to name. There are about 100,000 

 trees, and the loss must amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars, many 

 of the orchards being remarkably thrifty and well grown, but practically 

 worthless. Neither of these dealers have attempted to do any business in 

 that town for the past two years, one having quit in favor of a county 

 office, the other following the same business south of here. 



But all dealers are not rascals, as there was another in the same 

 township, a prominent farmer, and ex-member of our legislature, who 

 attempted to " fill in " his winters by selling nursery stock, and so far the 

 orchards sold by him have turned out remarkably well. 



I mention these local matters simply as samples of what is going on all 

 over the country, from which the aggregate loss amounts to millions of 

 dollars annnally. One peculiarly noticeable fact is that this trouble is 

 least in pear stock, next in apples, and greatest in peaches and small fruit, 

 which would indicate that substitution was practiced largely according to 

 the ability of farmers and growers to detect the fraud by the manner of 

 growth, color of bark, etc., of the stock furnished. 



Now, perhaps you infer that I consider the nurseryman alone in fault 

 for this state of affairs. Not at all. I have simply pointed out the things 

 which he should not practice. A very large proportion of our fruitgrow- 

 ers, by their ignorance and indifference, are partially responsible for this 

 state of affairs, as they are considered the legitimate prey of this class of 

 sharpers. If you don't believe this, look around you and select your most 

 successful commercial fruitgrower, and you will find that he has not made 



