STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 79 



Our new law to protect planters against fraud by tree peddlers and 

 dealers is in no sense a nurseryman's invention. While a very limited 

 number spoke against the gross frauds that were continually being 

 practised upon the farmers, I am not aware that a single nurseryman 

 helped to put the law into its present shape. I think they would pre- 

 fer free trade with Canada and all other countries, and very much 

 regret that the robbery of the " tree dealer " should have been the 

 cause of such a partial and restrictive-law. 



I wrote President Patten, of Iowa, if this law would work any 

 injury to horticultural pursuits in Iowa, and he replied: "Yes, it 

 cripples small nursery establishments all over the northern half of 

 Iowa, and lets in the big bugs who can put up the bonds, and drives 

 honest competition out of your State, and allows those who can sell 

 at home an excuse, and a reasonable one, too, for asking bi2:ger prices 

 for their stock. The law was thoroughly canvassed at the last Na- 

 tional Nurserymen's Convention, at Chicago, and thought by a large 

 majority of the most intelligent men there to be a clear infringement 

 of the inter-state commerce law; and there is no doubt but that if a 

 suit was brought under your law, that an association of nurserymen 

 would conduct it, and they believe it would be declared unconstitu- 

 tional. They regard it as substantially so decided in a decision by the 

 United States supreme court, made in Tennessee last fall. Such legis- 

 lation will never be tolerated in this country." 



E. De Bell, president Dakota Horticultural Society, writes under 

 date of December 29th: " In regard to the Minnesota tree law, the 

 only objection that might be urged against it is its discrimiuation 

 against nurserymen outside the State of Minnesota. Yet if each State 

 had a similar law it might be called an offset. Nursery firms with 

 large capital are able to give bonds for a large number of agents, 

 while the poor (because honest) nurseryman is excluded. I do not 

 know of any way by which this can be avoided. On the whole I think 

 the law a most excellent one for Minnesota, but hard on Dakota, until 

 we get a similar one, which we shall endeavor to do." Whether the 

 law is constitutional or not I am unable to say. There is a question 

 whether or not any State has the right to discriminate in any legiti- 

 mate business in favor of residents of its own state as against those 

 of other states. A nurseryman in Wisconsin mentions as one of the 

 good results of our law restricting "tree dealers," that the better class 

 of agents formerly working for "hefty" firms further East and South, 

 whose nurseries were as extensive as the poor man's pasture (viz., 

 the whole length of the highway), and existed only on paper — he says 



