HOW TO RUN A NURSERY. 441 



HOW TO RUN A NURSERY. 



J. COLE DOUGHTY, LAKE CITY. 



Take a fool's advice and don't do it. You will never even make a 

 fourth rate nurseryman unless you are content to get up at 4 a. m., 

 put in sixteen hours' hard work and after supper just run down to 

 the office and put in five or six hours, and then, if j'ou have forgot- 

 ten anything or can't find any other little job, take a nap and be 

 ready for breakfast. 



As to what to grow, that is the easiest part of the business. Don't 

 trouble yourself about that. Just look over the state horticultural 

 society reports and plant what isrecommended there. I don't think 

 you can name many varieties that stand a ghost of a show of living 

 in this climate that don't find a friend in the society, some one to say 

 a good word for them. This, of course, only goes to show that jolly 

 good feeling that animates those horticultural fellows. When they 

 get together up there at Minneapolis and get to swapping stories, 

 they have a mellow spot in their hearts for everybody unless it is 

 the guileless "tree peddler." For him they always have a marble 

 heart and the stony glare of the e3'e that means a shot gun and bull 

 dog reception. 



But to return to the subject of planting. By all means keep "up 

 date." If John Smith discovers a new strawberry that does not 

 runner but grows upright just like a bush, get the exclusive control 

 of it. It maj- be a grand, good thing, and you would hate awfully to 

 have some other nurseryman walkoff with a " bonanza." Keep your 

 eye open for all the new things. Hop onto every new seedling apple 

 you see. It may be another Wealthy — the grandestapple of the last 

 decade — waiting for some one to " to bring it out." It is true there 

 are some failures and disappointments in "fathering" new things. 

 It is wonderful, the infant mortality of seedling apples! Like the 

 "Ships That Pass in the Night," they gently fade away, and "the 

 places that knew them know them no more." 



But "there are others." The Tree Blackberry, the Everlasting 

 Everbearing Raspberry, the Japan Wineberry, etc., etc. Until you 

 have had something to do with all of these, your education as a 

 nurseryman is incomplete. It is much like the measles, if you fol- 

 low the business, 3'ou have got to have them some time; hence, I 

 would recommend that you take them in allopathic doses, and, bet- 

 ter still, if you can, take them all at once. If you survive and the 

 above does not spoil a right good fellow, it is liable to make a fairly 

 decent nurseryman out of you. 



Above all, you must be public spirited. To do this, you may beg> 

 borrow (but never steal), all the money you can get and pay it out 

 for labor, freights, printing, etc., and thus build up your town. 

 True, your fellow townsmen may not buy trees or plants enough to 

 enable you to pay your taxes — and they generally don't — but that 

 doesn't count. Before you get through, you will command their 

 sympathy if you don't see their dollars. 



By all means, you must entertain. When the " advanced horticul- 

 turist" visits you, take him in and give him the best there is in the 



