XII. 



REFLECTIVE IMPRESSIONS OF THE 

 NURSERY BUSINESS.' 



It often happens that one who is not actively 

 engaged in any given business or profession, but who 

 has opportunities to observe the methods and the men 

 concerned in it, may form impressions of certain fea- 

 tures of it which may possess quite as much value 

 as those opinions which are held by men who are con- 

 stantly absorbed in its details. At all events, this is 

 my excuse for coming before this body of nursery- 

 men ; and if the impressions which I present to you 

 are wholly irrelevant or even unfounded, you may still 

 be interested to know how certain phases of the nur- 

 sery business strike an outsider. 



In the first place, I look upon the nursery business 

 as the foundation of our fruit growing ; and if my 

 remarks seem to have a fruit-grower's bias, it is be- 

 cause I am most fully conscious of the great impor- 

 tance of nursery -culture to the evolution of our 

 agriculture. The old type of farming is gradually 

 crumbling away, and new and special industries are 

 growing upon its ruins. The dominant type in this 

 newer movement in the older states is fruit culture. 

 At the present rate of tree planting, the northern half 



'Read before the American Association of Nurserymen, at Indianapolis, 

 June 13, 1895. Printed in Report of the Twentieth Annual Meeting of the 

 Association, 40-43. 



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