212 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



the day when Minnesota would become noted for its large products 

 of fruit. Our nurserymen grow fine stock, true to name, and they 

 advertise so thoroughly that every occupier of land is approached 

 by them. Their names are many, and their orders are large. 

 They pack their stock with pains and intelligence and ship with 

 promptness. This I have liad a chance to know from personal 

 observation. Now comes the work of the delivery agent. 0, 

 what a misnomer ! He should be called the "destroying agent." 

 The nurseryman is a benefactor and strains, yes, successfully 

 strains, every nerve to give to his customer the best stock in the 

 best condition. The delivery agent exercises all the nerve he has 

 got — and he has plenty of it — to collect the cash from which comes 

 his commission, but he never spares time or muscle to preserve 

 the life of the stock. I doubt if 15 per cent of the fruit trees de- 

 livered by him survive the "drying process" to which he sub- 

 jects them, and much of what he has not himself killed dies be- 

 cause, in his hurr5% he allows customers to "chuck" the bare 

 rooted trees into the wagon to ride many miles exposed to the 

 sun and wind. I am describing the common not the occasional 

 delivery. 



Nurserymen, it is in your power, and your power only, to 

 cure this evil. Were all customers to buy directly from our Min- 

 nesota nurserymen and have their stock shipped directly to them 

 with a ten-lined instruction of how to "heel in" the annual profit 

 to the state and to the customer would be great. 



Tree peddlers are bad enough because they know little of 

 horticulture and encourage the purchase of stock tvliich is more 

 beautiful on paper than useful in the garden, but what can we say 

 of the delivery agent who is too lazy to put the roots in a trench 

 and to &ee that the stock starts from his hands to its destination 

 as well cared for as was the case when his employer first started 

 them on their journey. 



Mr. A. J. Philips: How many nurseries have you visited in 

 Minnesota and Wisconsin at the time of shipment of trees? 



Mr, Terry: Ma> I answer that in a peculiar way? I do not 

 know how they pack the stock, Ijut I know enough about trees to 

 know when mine arrive properly packe<l. I could go through a 

 lot of forms and motions about packing trees and people might 

 think I did it well, l)ut I want to know how they will arrive. 



Mr. Philips: I think the statement about the nurserymen 

 has surprised some of those men who raise trees, it did me 

 anyway. 



Mr. Terry: I would like to ask the gentleman whether he 

 has ever been surprised at the rough way in which a professional 

 nurse will handle a patient, and when we handle them so carefully 



