402 ANNUAL KEPOET 



Mr. Latham. That hits every man in the State; it is abso- 

 lutely impossible to comply with the requirements; everybody 

 knows that no nurseryman can keep all the stock he advertises; 

 if he cannot buy in Minnesota he has to go to Wisconsin, or 

 Illinois, or somewhere else, for it must be had. 



Mr. Cutler. Mr. President, it seems to me the object is to 

 prohibit a man from misrepresenting. Suppose a man who is a 

 nurseryman has an agent on the road; I ask him where the stock 

 he sells is grown; he says part in Minnesota, part in New York; 

 that would be all right, I would buy it knowing what I was buy- 

 ing. But when he says it is wholly grown in Minnesota, accord- 

 ing to the x)rovisions of the proposed act he would render him- 

 self liable; I don't see any injustice in that at all. 



Mr. Latham. Mr. Chairman, I think that ought to be changed; 

 it is impossible for the agent to know where all this stock comes 

 from. 



Mr. Cutler. He might countermand his order in such case. 



Mr. Latham. An agent can not know where all the stock he 

 sells is grown, whether at Excelsior, at Lake City, or any other 

 particular place, but he has to get his stock somewhere and if 

 he takes an order he will get it filled somewhere. I don't believe 

 there is a delivery made of any amount where the stock is all 

 grown by the party selling. 



Mr. Gould. So far I have avoided taking any part in this 

 "controversy," which I will refer to in that way. I have no 

 doubt it is well intended by the parties who have pushed this 

 scheme ; but I have been in the nursery business to some extent 

 for sixteen or eighteen years. I am rather out of it now. But 

 I do pretend to know something about the business and the men 

 that are carrying on this business in Minnesota; and I regard 

 this whole business as a sort of boy's play, when we undertake 

 to secure legislation to fit the case ; it is impossible to do it. 

 While it is perhaps well enough to agitate the cxuestion here — I 

 suppose more or less of it goes into the record — I think it is 

 expecting a little too much to suppose that the legislature will 

 pass any enactment to protect farmers from the ravages of tree 

 peddlers. 



Mr. C. E. Smith. Well, they will do it. 



Mr. Gould. I want to say further, until you can educate the 

 farmers they will be imposed upon. You might as well have the 

 lio-htning-rod men licensed and with just as much propriety, and 

 these washing-machine men, the dairymen and horsemen and 



