HORTICULTURE 



Vol. XXX 



JULY 5, 1919 



No. 1 



NURSERYMEN TAKE IMPORTANT ACTION 



Perhaps the most important action 

 by the American Association of Nur- 

 serymen in convention at Chicago last 

 week was the decision to take over the 

 Nurserymen's Service Bureau to be 

 run under the direct supervision of 

 the Association. It was voted to make 

 an assessment of one-fourth of one 

 per cent, on the gross sales of nursery 

 stock. 



A campaign of education will be un- 

 dertaken on a wide scale in order to 

 increase the interest in nursery stock 

 and to bring about its more intelligent 

 and systematic use. 



Another important matter taken up 

 was the practice sometimes followed 

 of selling stock at trade prices to 

 those not in the trade. A resolution 

 strongly condemning this practice was 

 adopted. It is not improbable that 

 drastic measures will be taken if mem- 

 bers are found continuing this prac- 

 tice. 



The officers elected were J. Edward 

 Moon, president; Lloyd C. Stark, vice- 

 president; Chas. Sizemore, secretary 

 and J. W. Hill, treasurer. 



Retiring president, J. R. Mayhew, in 

 his address said: 



"A year ago your executive commit- 

 tee engaged the services of Chas. Size- 

 more as secretary-traffic manager. One 

 of the duties of his office has been that 

 of auditing freight and express bills 

 of the members, and in the discussion 

 of the possibilities of this feature of 

 his work with the committee. I stated 

 that if the membership would co-oper- 

 ate with this new office by filing with 

 Mr. Sizemore their old freight and ex- 

 press bills, under the proposed plan of 

 having 15 per cent, of the claims col- 

 lected go into our treasury, 10 per cent, 

 to the secretary, and 75 per cent, to the 

 member owning the claim, the amount 

 designated as the treasury's funds 

 would largely pay the secretary's sal- 

 ary. How well my prediction has been 

 verified is best told by the figures 

 taken from the secretary's books on 

 June 1. 



"Total claims collected, $7,53.^ 08; 



serving a total of 29 firms and distrib- 

 uted as follows: Funds returned to the 

 members, $5,654.31; funds returned to 

 the treasury, $1,130.90; Chas. Size- 

 more's commissions, $753.87. 



"In other words, on June 1 the secre- 

 tary's salary for the year had been re- 

 turned to the treasury with the excep- 

 tion of $369.10, and only 29 firms out 

 of a total of 400 had made use of this 

 service. It can readily be imagined 

 what the possibilities of this office 

 would be if the entire membership 

 would use the services offered, which, 

 by the way, are cheaper by 10 per cent, 

 than the same service offered by audit- 

 ing firms generally. I think, gentle- 

 men, I could not bring you better evi- 

 dence of the possibilities of organiza- 

 tion than is shown by this report. 



"Fear was expressed quite generally 

 a year ago that many of the larger 

 firms would forfeit their membership 

 rather than pay the advanced dues, 

 and it is gratifying to be able to re- 

 port that not only has this not been 

 true, but a larger percentage of the 

 members have paid their dues under 

 the present schedule than on corres- 

 ponding dates of recent years. The 

 last information coming to my office 

 on June 16 was that only 59 members 

 had failed to report, and not one of 

 these was among the large contribu- 

 tors. In view of the fact that quite a 

 large percentage of the membership 

 has in the past paid their dues during 

 the convention, this report is most 

 gratifying. The increase of member- 

 ship fees and dues over the old sched- 

 ule is approximately 100 per cent, as 

 a whole, and altogether represents as 

 fair and equitable a basis of taxation 

 as could reasonably be hoped for. As 

 I have already stated, I believe the 

 present basis will provide adequate 

 funds for taking care of the associa- 

 tion's affairs in a creditable manner, 

 and as far as I have been -able to learn, 

 this basis is, with very few exceptions 

 satisfactory to the membership. It is 

 not so much a matter, after all, of 

 what a thing costs today as it is the 

 service rendered, and this is peculiarly 

 true of membership in this association. 

 This membership can be made worth 

 much more than our present schedule 

 suggests, and if we do not get "cold 

 feet" it will not be many years before 



membership becomes so valuable that 

 every eligible nurseryman in the entire 

 country will be begging for admittance, 

 without regard to the cost. My hope is 

 that we may leave the schedule of dues 

 where it is and that we may raise the 

 standard otherwise until membership 

 in the American Association of Nur- 

 serymen will represent all that is best 

 and nothing that is bad in American 

 horticulture. 



The American Association of Nurs- 

 erymen has a right to speak for the 

 nurserymen of America, and it is the 

 only organization in the country that 

 has that right. I do not agree with 

 my friend, the editor of the American 

 Nurseryman, that this association "rep- 

 resents one-fifth of the nurserymen of 

 this country." I am cognizant of the 

 fact that there are a great many small 

 nurserymen who are not members of 

 the association, but I feel secure in 

 the statement that any action of this 

 body represents in a definite way the 

 nursery interests of America, for the 

 very obvious reason that this member- 

 ship represents most probably 90 per 

 cent, of the money invested in the busi- 

 ness in America, and holds within its 

 hands a large majority of the annual 

 business in nursery products. This 

 position is recognized by all, because 

 no other body or individual makes any 

 special effort to shape the destinies of 

 the nursery business along national 

 lines. 



In 1917 your executive and legisla- 

 tive committees, anticipating the ac- 

 tion of the Federal Horticultural 

 Board in regard to plant exclusion, 

 brought the whole matter before you 

 in their report and asked that you 

 direct them, and I hereby remind you 

 that you directed your officers by adop- 

 ting unanimously the following resolu- 

 tion: "Resolved that the executive 

 committee recommends that the asso- 

 ciation do not approve of the exclusion 

 of foreign grown nursery stock, but 

 that the subject be referred to the in- 

 coming executive and legislative com- 

 mittees with power to act." On page 

 123 of the report of the proceedings at 

 the Philadelphia convention, after a 

 full discussion of the matter, this state- 

 ment appears: 



"The resolution recommended for 

 adoption by the executive committee 



