How to Purchase 173 



often pay exorbitant prices. In a certain town, when 

 farmers were paying 28 cents each for peach trees in lots 

 of a dozen, any reliable nursery would have been glad to 

 have supplied the same varieties at $18 a hundred, at the 

 nursery. Plums that should have sold for 15 cents to 20 

 cents each were selling to farmers for 50 and 60 cents. 

 The man who expects to plant an orchard for profit will 

 not be led by agents into any glowing scheme or into the 

 purchase of wonderful varieties. He will usually buy directly 

 of the nearest nurseryman who can supply the desired' 

 stock and varieties at the prices that suit him. Some nur- 

 serymen employ regular and reliable agents, and such 

 agents carry a certificate from the firm they represent. 

 But while these salesmen may be perfectly straight- 

 forward, and may be the best channels through whom small 

 orders can be secured by those who are uninformed in 

 pomological matters, all persons who expect to go into 

 fruit-growing seriously should buy directly of the nurseries. 

 Yet we must remember that the tree agent has been one of 

 the means of clothing the country with fruit trees, and 

 thereby of adding much to the contentment of farm life. 



The buyer should make up his mind just what varieties 

 he wants, and then find the nursery that has them, and 

 order early enough to get them. There is then no occasion 

 to consider the vexed question of substitution of varieties. 

 If the varieties are not in market, buy stocks of some 

 strong-growing staple variety, and after these are estab- 

 lished usually the spring or summer of the next year 

 bud or graft the tops to the desired varieties. 



It is better to have the stock delivered in autumn and 

 plant it or heel it in over winter than to trust to the un- 

 certainties of spring delivery and the disadvantages of 

 cellared stock. 



