UINT3 TO rUi;CIIA6KK8 OF TltEES, AC". 



impossible that leisure and circumspection -whicli can be given to ordinary trade 

 A l)(n' entrusted to attach a label, may get it on the wrong tree or package, and the 

 cri-or may escape notice until too late. In packing, which must be entrusted to work- 

 men, there are many chances for mistakes even where the most rigid sui-veillance is 

 kept up. Indeed, throughout the whole routine of their business — in propagating, dig- 

 ging, labelling, and pocking — tliere are an almost infinite number of small operations 

 which require exactness, and all of which expose to error. Be charitable, then, and do 

 not call every error a trick or a cheat. Every year our professional nurserymen and 

 seedsmen are becoming more systematic and more careful, as well as more discrimina- 

 ting and skillful, and thus the chances for error are rapidly decreasing, except among 

 new beginners, who have everything to learn. 



There is growing up, however, in this country, a system of dealing for whicli respect- 

 able nurserymen are not responsible, and to which it is our present purpose to call 

 attention. The extraordinary growth of horticultural commerce Avithin the few past 

 yeai*s, has attracted the attention of that large class of speculating individuals who are 

 ever on the look-out for a profitable field of operations — men who are peddling grave- 

 stones to-day, lightning-rods to-morrow, patent medicines the next day, and so on 

 from one thing to another. The country is filled with dealers in trees and plants. 

 Beyond a doubt many of them are honest and honorable — men who may fairly be 

 trusted; but it is equally true that very many of them lack honesty, and will not hesi- 

 tate to misrepresent and deceive wherever they consider deception necessary to success. 

 "We have in our hands the most ample evidence of this. Letter upon letter has been 

 for some time past addressed to us upon this subject from all parts of the country, beg- 

 ging us to expose the frauds, and propose some remedy. But what can we do ? The 

 world is full of credulous people, ever ready to be made victims to the crafty stories of 

 unscrupulous rogues, — people who read but little, and whom our warnings will never 

 reach, and who, even if they did, would give them no heed, — people whom even dear- 

 bought experience would fail to teach wisdom. They are the penny-wise and pound- 

 foolish, who will run a thousand risks of being cheated for a single chance of making a 

 good bargain. The authorities of New York city caused flaming placards to be carried 

 around the streets, in the most conspicuous manner, to caution country people against 

 being decoyed into mock auction rooms, where they are certain to be fleeced by a set 

 of stool pigeons ; but while these placards are carried up and down all day long, every 

 morning paper brings to light some mock auction frauds, and thousands are daily per- 

 petrated that are never made public. All that can be urged against the folly and 

 madness of swallowing patent medicines avails nothing ; for we see the country full of 

 traveling medicine chests, and vast fortunes realized from the business. All manner of 

 frauds are perpetrated, day after day and year after year, upon a credulous public, and 

 yet the last reaps as rich a harvest as the first. We have therefore but little hope that 

 anything can be done to stay deceptive trading in trees, plants, or seeds. Our corres- 

 pondent "M," of Maumee, Ohio, related in our last number some of the tricks of for- 

 eign adventurers in the West, and we have seen the very same things done in this 

 enlightened horticultural city of ours a few years ago. Large quantities of the merest 

 trash were sold at exorbitant prices to persons who were never known to patronize 

 pectable nurserj^men and florists at their own doors to the amount of a dollar. A 

 time ago a gentleman from one of the Eastern States called on us, and inquired 



