PROCEEDINGS OF THE WINTER MEETING. 7 



may be many miles, and require being out a night or so. Take time to talk 

 over kinds and other matters with the proprietor. Be on hand when plants 

 are dug, or if heeled in, when they are taken out, ready to reject anything you 

 don't like, as men have to be trusted sometimes who care little whether the 

 roots are on the tree or left in the ground. It would be unjust to laborers, 

 however to pass this remark without adding that some proprietors will stand 

 by, looking as honest as " old Grimes " while trees are being handled for a 

 customer, that they know are black-hearted or otherwise diseased, or who will 

 coolly label some kind of which there is a surplus with names of sorts called 

 for but which they cannot supply. 



The second best method, and often just as good, is to order direct of the 

 nuiseryman, and if he is honest and wide awake to his own interest, you 

 will have cause to rejoice when you unpack your stock; no little stunted 

 stuff or substitutes there ; for if he could not properly fill your order, he 

 wrote you at once and said so. In closing I wish to refer briefly to what 

 has seemed to me a great and growing evil, and a most prolific cause of 

 mistakes in purchasing. I allude to the overpraise bestowed in some cata- 

 logues and other horticultural advertising, especially upon new varieties. 

 Is not the praiseworthy desire to guard customers against mistaking and to 

 supply them with the very best of everything, in danger of being supplanted 

 by this talent for overwrought description ? 



And is not this method too nearly allied in its results to some of the 

 first mentioned cases for honorable men to adopt? 



The Secretary read the following paper from J. N. Stearns, of Kalamazoo, 

 on the same subject : 



HOW TO BUY NURSERY STOCK. 



This is really an important subject to be discussed at this time, as many of 

 us are now making plans of what we will plant in the spring. I made the re- 

 mark at our December meeting that I had no sympathy for those that were 

 being "taken in" by the unprincipled tree peddler at this time, with all the 

 means we have for information through our horticultural reports, and still only 

 a few years since I, myself, was "sold " by not heeding one of the points I 

 shall mention under the head of caution. Those contemplating planting should 

 know first what they want. If they have not had sufficient experience with 

 varieties, they should read carefully the reports of this society, that they may 

 have the benefit of the experience of practical growers in the State. Then, a 

 little time spent conversing with a neighbor, who is making a success in fruit 

 growing, will be found of value to the planter. After deciding what you will 

 plant, club with your neighbors and send your order directly to a reliable nur- 

 seryman. If you have not this information, write to some person whom you 

 have confidence in that would be likely to know of such nurseryman, for all 

 nurserymen are not to be trusted, more than all tree dealers. But, as a class, 

 my experience leads me to the belief that they are fully up to the average of 

 other business men in reliability. 



CAUTION. 



Do not buy of an agent who has some extraordinary new fruit, " curculio 

 proof," " ironclad," and of wonderful size and extra quality, for which, on ac- 

 count of these superior qualities, he is obliged to charge five or six prices. 



