110 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



whatever he can in the shape of a tree, regardless of its kind or quality. Much 

 complaint is made, from year to year, against nurserymen, or tree-dealers, as 

 they are more frequently called. They are stigmatized as cheats and thieves. 

 No language has been too strong to be applied to them. And doubtless there 

 have been many cases which warranted severe rebuke. There have been un- 

 scrupulous persons in the nursery business, as there are in all trades and pur- 

 suits, who are willing to make gain at all hazards, and by the most selfish and 

 unworthy methods, no matter at what cost or loss to others. A whole class 

 have thus been judged by the misdeeds of a few, and have suffered unwarrant- 

 ably in consequence. What, in many cases, has been only lack of proper care, 

 has been taken to be a willingness to cheat and defraud, and has been treated 

 accordingly. Doubtless agents sometimes have made representations which 

 were not sanctioned by their employers. 



***** 



When we look at it aright, the calling of the nurseryman should be 

 regarded as that of high and honorable trusteeship. He stands between his fel- 

 low-men and the great tree world of which they are ignorant and of which 

 he has a knowledge, and he is to give them the benefit of that knowledge by 

 showing them how to attain the utmost comfort and pleasure from the growths 

 of field and forest. For this they are willing to recompense him. They put 

 confidence in his character and knowledge, confessing their own ignorance. 

 He ought not to disappoint their confidence, but to use all carefulness to satisfy 

 their wishes. But over and beyond this care in his business transactions with 

 individuals, the nurseryman holds an important trust for the public. He 

 should be foremost in all public improvements in which trees bear part. His 

 knowledge fits him to be such, and it is comparatively easy for him to start a 

 movement for planting trees along the street borders, or on some open and 

 neglected ground, which might thus lie transformed into a beautiful park, a 

 source of perpetual pleasure and refining influences. 



Such things are not simply pleasant to the sight. They have an influence 

 upon character. The children who grow up among beautiful trees, who walk 

 under them as they go to and from school, or play under their shade, will grow 

 up to be different and better men and women than if they had not lived in 

 this fellowship. This is directly in the line of the nurseryman's calling, 

 while pursuing his own interests to be at the same time a public benefactor. 

 His is a privileged position in this respect. Let him, therefore, show himself a 

 man of large, intelligent, and generous views: no mere grubber in the dirt, 

 intent upon getting the most out of others, regardless of everything except 

 his personal and pecuniary gain. He can do more than any one else to convert 

 the world from a wilderness into a garden. He can teach the lumberman and 

 the farmer how to make their acres of forest yield more of lumber and fuel 

 than they now do. He can show land-holders how to prevent the most valu- 

 able timber trees from being overrun and supplanted by those of inferior qual- 

 ity, and how to replace the latter, when they exist, by those of better char- 

 acter. He can show all about him how to beautify their homes by the 

 judicious planting of trees around them. And every nurseryman's home 

 should, of course, be a model in this respect. It should be, at the same time, 

 his best business advertisement, and an encouraging example for all who live 

 near him, or who merely see his home as passing travelers. 



* * * * 



Within a short time we have become aware not onlv that our land-owners 



