278 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
The case was carried to the supreme court of the United States and 
there declared unconstitutional. The goods they were selling were 
legitimate; and I think the same rule would apply in the nursery 
line. [have my doubts whether you can formulate a law requiring 
a commercial traveler to pay a license or make him give bonds 
where he comes from another state with his goods or sample 
articles of commerce. I think trees are articles of commerce. You 
may pass such a law, making it apply the same to a nurseryman 
here in the state as to a nurseryman outside of the state, but I do 
not believe it would be held as applying to those outside; it would 
be decided unconstitutional, and then you would be in a worse fix 
than before, because you would be required to pay license and the 
other fellow would not. 
Mr. Gould: The older members of the society will remember that 
a dozen years ago when this question or a similar one was up for 
discussion, I opposed the whole business, and it turns out now that 
I was correct in that, because the law was no good. I believe it 
casts a stigma upon the business of selling nursery stock. I am 
not speaking in defense of myself or my occupation, because I do 
not stand as a nurseryman, but I believe, as I always have believed, 
that the nursery business is as honorable as any other business, 
and Iam almost out of patience with this whole matter. I do not 
see why the people are not well enough posted to get along and 
guard against and defend their own weaknesses without having a 
law enacted to protect them as if they were so many children; and 
as some speakers have stated before in reference to this matter, I 
believe it will be a difficult thing to frame a law that will amount 
to anything. I think nurserymen should have as good a footing in 
those matters as other people. I do not see why they should be 
held under legal enactments to keep their trade. I think this so- 
ciety above all others should not be a party to such a thing. If 
people in other occupations think it worth while to bring these 
matters out that we are discussing here, let them do it, but to do it 
ourselves I think is beneath our dignity. 
Pres. Underwood; The question is now on the appointment of a 
committee of three to draft a law to be submitted to the executive 
committee, to be approved by them and afterwards submitted to the 
committee on legislation to secure its enactment. 
On being put to vote the motion to appoint such a committee 
prevailed. 
