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204 



THE ILLINOIS FAEMEE. 



July 



Substituting Nursery Stock. 



We hear no small amount of complaint in this 

 part of the State during the last spring, in regard 

 to substitution in filling nursery orders. It ap- 

 pears that no regard at all has been had to the 

 wishes of the customer, but the nurserymen, or 

 rather the dealers, have filled the orders on their 

 own hook. Did a farmer order a hundred apple 

 trees, half of them of some favorite kinds, no at- 

 tention appears to have been paid to it ; did a lady 

 desire a particular rose, she was sure to be disap- 

 pointed. In one case we hear of a lady who or- 

 dered two dozen verbenas, and received them all of 

 one kind. 



These goods nearly all come through the hands 

 of traveling agents, some from our own State nur- 

 series and others from Ohio. We have been ask- 

 ed to publish the names of these nurseries, but if 

 people will fool away their momey on tree agents 

 of any kind when they can be better served by or- 

 dering at the nurseries of responsible men, they 

 may seek their own remedies. If B owns a nurse- 

 ry, and C instead of ordering from him direct and 

 making him responsible for the selection, orders 

 from some traveling pretended agent, who fills the 

 order with the cheapest he can get, who is to blame 

 but C ? Nurserymen grow what they can sell, and 

 if the tree peddler engage of them a cheap grown 

 stock, they will be accommodated as a matter of 

 course, but if cultivators order the best variety of 

 plants and will take no other, of course they will 

 grow them. So long as there is no discrimination 

 in the variety of apple trees, the rapid upright 

 growers will be propagated, for who will propagate 

 the Yellow Bellflour, the Winesap, Koules' Janet, 

 Standard or American Summer Pearmain, while 

 rapid, upright, though comparatively worthless 

 sorts will sell just as well ? It 'is the whip 

 the peddlers want. What care they for the 

 future value of the orchard ? It is their business 

 to purchase at wholesale as cheap as possible, say 

 eight cents cash for the apple, and sell at twenty 

 to twenty-five cents to their dupes. While if the 

 farmer would order from the nursery direct, he 

 would be better dealt by. 



We make no exception to this rule, for we be- 

 lieve that in no case will a person do as well as to 

 or direct from the nursery. The truth is, these 

 agents are nine times out of ten no agents at all, 

 but agree to take of the nurserymen at certain 

 rates what they can sell, and what is more natural 

 in such a case than for the nurserymen to give 

 them the poorest part of the stock ? Will he not 



fill the order that is sent to him first and out of the 

 best, and that too without substitutes, while the 

 refuse will go to fill the orders of the peddler or 

 pretended agent ? 



There is no branch of business that needs re- 

 forming more than this. Oae would suppose from 

 its nature that we might expect better things from 

 the men engaged in it, but the selling has got into 

 the hands of a set of scamps through the indiflPer- 

 ence of the planting public. Local nurseries are 

 ruined by the system, at the same time, the large 

 nurseries who furnish them, breaks or the body 

 politic make but a small profit, and many of them 

 have went under. 



The remedy is with the people. So long as they 

 order through the agent and take substitutes, they 

 can have the privilege of doing so for all we care. 



Much has been said of Eastern tree peddlers, 

 but they are gentlemen beside many of our native. 

 In the first place they have better stock to choose 

 from, and besides the Eastern nurserymen are be- 

 ginning to protect themselves by employing a bet- 

 ter, set of men, or at least see that the goods ship- 

 ped are true to name. 



We are largely engaged in fruit growing, having 

 over a hundred acres in orchard, and have been 

 made to realize the value of this substitute sys- 

 tem, in our purchases at wholesale. We have done 

 with test also, and we now take nothing but what 

 we order. When we agree for Bartlett pear, or 

 when a certain order is agreed to be filled we do 

 not take the leavings of the season's sale on the 

 plea that "the stock is run short and others ha^ to 

 be sent." We take the kind ordered or none at 

 all. Last spring we purchased several thousand 

 pear trees, and they came as agreed upon, with one 

 exception, and that in our favor. " We had not 

 sufiBcient Buffum of the age agreed on to fill your 

 order, and are compelled to send you those a year 

 older." We should not have complained if they had 

 not been sent, but this man knew that if he ha(| 

 substituted them- they would be on his hands. -Jit 



So long as tree planters submit to this abuse, so 

 longjwill it be continued. 



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"Work for the Orchard. 



We begin to bud this month, and close with 

 peach early in September. The rule in budding ifl 

 to do it when the bark will peel freely, and the 

 buds to use are pretty well matmred. In budding 

 apples, we sometimes start them the same season- 

 This can be done if the buds are set early in the 

 season, by cutting back the stock budded to with- 

 in three or four inches of the bud. This is best 

 done two or three days after the bud has been in- 



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