404 ANNUAL REPORT 



ter. It will not be a popular law and will never operate as you 

 think it will, at all. You pass a law requiring a license and it 

 would put a tariff on the stock sold which would come out of 

 the consumer. 



Mr. Cutler. Mi'. President, I can not see why the gentlemen 

 who are in this business of selling nursery stock can oppose this 

 measure. As Mr. Pearce has stated it is going to help him be- 

 cause it will drive these other iellows out. I believe we have 

 laws for our protection and for the protection of the pooi-. Mr. 

 Gould's orchard is protected by law from the depredations of 

 thieves; a stringent law has been passed to prevent stealing 

 of fruit. A f(iw years ago a law was passed in regard to patent 

 rights, and have we seen these men running over the country 

 lately as we used to? And now, for the protection of the poor, 

 living out on the prairies, I would like to see such men pro- 

 tected, as well as the nurserymen. They will buy trees when 

 they want them. If I want a dollar's worth of sngar I go to the 

 store and buy it, and I know where to get it. We can get along 

 very well without the help of these sharks that come here from 

 some other state to impose worthless stock upon us. 



Mr. C. L. Smith. The saving in one year would be enough to 

 j)ay the running expenses of our Society since its oi'ganization. 



Mr. Sias. In regard to one point my friend Pearce made. He 

 says there is no use of locking the stable after the hoi-se is stolen. 

 There are a great many horses in the stable that have not 

 been stolen. It is our duty to protect those animals. Laws 

 are made for the lawless. There is nothing in this measure that 

 can harm an innocent dealer. It is not intended to injure our 

 nurserymen. I can not see anything that would injure my bus- 

 iness, or Mr. Gould's, or Mr. Latham's. If you will study it 

 carefully I think you will reach the conclusion that it can not 

 hurt anybody except those who are doing a fraudulent business. 

 It has been shown that these operations complained of have been 

 going on here for years. I have been trying to compete with 

 these fraudulent tree dealers for about twenty Ave years. We 

 have tried repeatedly to pass something in this S'ate Horticul- 

 tural Society, that looked a little as though we didn't believe in 

 such i)ractices. Last year our president, I am sorry to say (and 

 he is an old friend of mine), threw ''cold water" on the whole 

 thing. We could not pass a single thing that looked like taking 

 any action in the matter. We have a chairman now who is will- 

 ins: to do something. He is not afraid of these men. He has 



