EDUCATING THE NURSERY AGENT. 32/ 



And now comes the question, what qualities should a man possess 

 in order to be a first-class solicitor? He should by nature be affable 

 and pleasant, a man of great energy, perseverance, tact and good 

 judgment. By education and training, he should be a veritable ency- 

 clopedia of horticultural knowledge, for after he has made a sale 

 of nursery stock he will be asked numerous questions relative to 

 the best location, manner of planting and after care of the proposed 

 fruit plantation or landscape garden. Where can a person get this 

 training ? To a young man who contemplates making a business of 

 selling nursery stock, the writer knows of no better advice than first 

 to take a course at some agricultural school, selecting the study of 

 horticulture as a specialty, supplement the knowledge obtained there 

 by actual practice in a nursery, and, finally, in the real work of solic- 

 iting orders he may, by observing the behavior of different varieties 

 of trees and plants under different environments, acquire a large 

 fund of useful information that will enable him successfully to com- 

 pete with the unscrupulous tree-peddler and thus become a public 

 benefactor in helping to spread the gospel of horticulture. 



Mr. A. J. Philips (Wis.) : Would you put an advertisement in 

 the paper for a man to sell trees and say that no experience was 

 necessary ? 



Mr. Higbie : I never have, and I hardly think I should. 



Mr. Husser : I think Mr. Higbie would have to have a new set 

 of agents to come up to his ideals. 



Mr. Higbie: I think in dealing with most of these subjects we 

 have to deal usually with the ideal. We want something to look up 

 to; we must have a certain standard of business, and that standard 

 should be a high ideal. Now, perhaps my ideal is pretty high for 

 any man to attempt to reach, but I believe it will be possible in time. 



Mr. Geo. J. Kellogg (Wis..) : An agent came along where I had 

 been furnishing some trees last spring and told the man those trees 

 were nothing but seedlings. Some of the trees could not be grafted 

 for less than twenty-five cents apiece. This nurseryman here has 

 told you that a good hand will graft two thousand trees a day. That 

 is one of the stories they put up. The "whole root system" and the 

 "budded trees'' are going the rounds again. 



Mr. A. C. Austin : Last summer I was in North Dakota, and I 

 had my eyes opened to many things in relation to what was the first 

 qualification of an agent, and I say character and the Golden Rule. 

 I have seen them going about up there and advocating things that 

 are no more fit for North Dakota than is the rich man of whom the 

 Master spoke to enter Heaven. (Laughter.) I have seen them go 

 to these people and hypnotize them, as it were, into buying a whole 

 lot of stuff, as the Professor said, where a little bit would have been 

 sufficient, instead of over-stocking them with something that they 

 did not have time to take care of and that would in any event 



