158 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



Mr. Morrill: I think the unfortunate part of that is that it weakens 

 the law. 



Prof. Hedrick: It does weaken the law to some extent. I think also 

 there ought to be a provision in the law enabling the inspector to publish 

 a list of the men who have a right to sell in the state, and enabling him 

 to publish a list of the work that he does. Such a report would be very 

 valuable, I am sure. There is no such provision, but I doubt not that 

 the auditor general will audit a bill for the printing. 



Mr. Morrill : I think that is true, 1 think that information ought to go 

 to the public. 



Mr. Morrill: I think if a report of that character could be issued as 

 the experiment station bulletins are issued, it would have value, but 

 if it had to w ait for any of the annual societj' reports in the present con- 

 dition of state printing, I think it would be so far behind that nobody 

 would ever recognize it when they saw it; everybod}" would be in advance 

 of the report. 



Mr. Hedrick: I agree with you, Mr. President, in that respect, and 

 I think the reports ought to be issued promptly. I ought now to be mak- 

 ing out a list of men who have a right to sell trees in this state. I think 

 perhaps such a list will be gotten out, but perhaps not under the author- 

 ship of the inspector. There ought to be a chance for the department 

 to be built up and become an important factor. The issuing of such 

 bulletins would help to make it an important factor in the fruitgrowing 

 of the state. 



Mr. Morrill: I believe that such a bulletin should be issued just as 

 quickly as the state inspector could get it out, and be sent to local news- 

 papers, and they would be very likely to reach the licensed agents in 

 their vicinities at least, and would give the growers information in ad- 

 vance of their purchases as to who had complied with the law; but to 

 wait for a state report of an}^ character, it would reach but few people 

 and would reach them too late to do anv good. It is undoubtedlv a fact 

 that it is going to take a long long time to correct the present haphazard 

 methods of producing fruit trees. The majority of our farmers, when 

 they decide to plant fruit trees, wait for somebody to come along, they 

 have not the slightest idea who it is going to be. The large growers 

 have opinions of their own, and do business as other men do business — 

 carefully, as a rule; but oftentimes a farmer has not been in the fruit 

 business, and concludes in a sort of half-hearted way that he will go 

 into it a little. He does not avail himself of the opportunities of getting 

 information that are open to everybody, because he has not exactly 

 learned how, and perhai)S he has not the time; and in the meantime, if 

 he has said anything about it, somebody has suggested to somebody 

 else that so-and-so is going to buy some trees. Very soon some agent — 

 responsible or irresponsible, however it may be — "gets onto him", as 

 they say, and he succeeds perhaps in selling him some trees, without 

 giving him any knowledge of where those trees are coming from. He 

 gets statements from the agent, perhaps, and very glowing pictures of 

 what he is going to get and where it is coming from, but he has no knowl- 

 edge of the truth of these statements. In fact, there are so many times 

 that the}' have been untrue that people who have experimented that way 

 became pretty well discouraged later on. Now, if this law will force 

 people to purchase stock known to be right by the proper authorities, 



