THE RUKAE NEW-YORKER 
360 
1912. 
THE QUESTION OF GUARANTEED TREES. 
I think the two following letters 
would be of value to your readers. I 
am about to start a little nursery busi¬ 
ness m a Southern State for my young 
people, and to get stock trees and plants 
I wrote to a prominent nursery com¬ 
pany for an absolute guarantee as to 
variety fitting the label. The answer 
is as follows: 
In regard to our guarantee of genuineness, 
would say that you seem to have entirely 
the -wrong idea about it. We don’t know 
what business you are in, but we notice 
you write “I made my scions from bearing 
trees and I know that a variety is the one 
I graft.” If you are in the habit of doing 
only a little grafting, and are very careful 
about it, no doubt you can feel reasonably 
sure that all will be correct. But suppose 
you were doing business on a large scale 
where you were obliged to employ one man, 
two men, or a dozen men, would you then 
be willing to certify that every graft that 
had been "worked by all of these men had 
gone through with no mistake? And even 
with yourself—did you not ever make a mis¬ 
take? The writer knows that he tries to 
be exact about everything he does, but once 
in a while things will go wrong; and we 
believe it is the same with every living 
mortal. 
In the propagation of trees there are 
many chances of mistakes from the time 
the tree is budded until it is shipped to the 
planter, as it takes a large number of men 
to look after all the work of a nursery 
business. There are many kinds of trees 
that can be identified just from the looks 
of the tree—its form of growth, character, 
color of wood, etc., but there are many 
other kinds that are so identical in appear¬ 
ance that no living man could tell them 
just from looking at the trees. So it would 
be ridiculous for any man doing a nursery 
business to try to give the impression that 
he could positively guarantee the genuine¬ 
ness of every tree. You could not find any 
nursery concern that is responsible to make 
such a claim, because there is no way to 
tell positively about every tree where it has 
gone through the hands of so many men 
in the nursery, but of course you will find 
any number of irresponsible firms that will 
make any kind of a guarantee that you 
might ask for. Where mistakes do occur 
we are willing to replace same free of 
charge or refund the amount paid for them, 
but we are not willing to pay any amount 
per tree that a man might think his trees 
were worth at fruiting time. 
Now we don’t want you to have the 
impression that there are many mistakes 
just because there are many chances for 
them. The fact of the matter is it is a 
very rare thing for us to have any report 
of a tree that turns out untrue to name, 
for no firm in the business is more careful 
about this than we. Every tree sent out 
has what we believe honestly to be its true 
label, and if you continue dealing with us 
you will find that we do things always on 
the square. During our 44 years in the 
nursery business we have had a few slight 
mixtures reported, but these have been only 
a few, and we never have had any serious 
mixture reported—that is any mixture cov¬ 
ering a large amount of trees. So we can 
assure you that anything you get from us 
will be found in the long run just as repre¬ 
sented ; and you need have no fears about 
opr guarantee. 
Yours truly, 
! - NURSERY CO. 
I 
Here is my reply to the above letter. 
Gentlemen : Y’our long explanatory letter 
received. It really seems to me that as you 
so very seldom make any mistake as to 
variety it would be well to advertise that 
you would stand for damage resultant upon 
your mistakes as to name. For instance, if 
a farmer plan for returns in five years from 
a certain variety, and you send him one 
that doesn’t bear for 10, and he loses his 
home in consequence—would a few hundred 
two-year-old trees sent by you to correct 
mistake—five years after original purchase, 
make him feel that you were square? 
Put in your catalogue that “upon satis¬ 
factory proof of mistake and loss—we will 
make good.” It will help your trade, for 
your present position makes it prominently 
appear that you do make mistakes some¬ 
times, and that you are going to make your 
customer stand the loss incurred by your 
mistake. 
Now I, w r ho am about to start a business 
in a Southern State for my young people, 
naturally want no mistakes made, and yet 
do not want to wait five or 10 years for 
identification of varieties, so instead of 
buying for stock trees as intended, I have 
grafted already about 50 varieties from my 
own orchards here, and shall use the trees 
you send on which to graft other varieties 
so as to be sure. I did intend to graft 
only such varieties as I couldn’t buy from 
you or other nurserymen, but as you are 
not sure and as others are not either, why 
I am'simply going to graft such usual varie¬ 
ties as Superfine, Boussock. Urbaniste, Bose, 
etc., from my own trees and not use your 
or other nurserymen’s trees as stock trees, 
for I am sure. Try this absolute guarantee 
and isolate each variety in a block by 
itself, and have a map or plan, drawn to 
scale like a survey, as I have, and no mis¬ 
take can be made. 
I add that I have had many trees, 
plants and vines come from leading 
nurserymen untrue to name, and have 
been greatly disappointed even after 
taking the trouble to send to Europe in 
one instance to get varieties I didn’t 
want or had. I shall in view of this 
letter from this nursery company be 
sure of my stock trees and vines by 
having every tree and vine identify it¬ 
self by its own fruit before propagat¬ 
ing from it. ELBERT WAKEMAN. 
Long Island. 
THE COLD STORAGE SITUATION. 
What are the facts about the last season’! 
work with apples in cold storage? 
The apple dealers thought the pros¬ 
pects so good last Fall they bought up 
storage late in season, but even then 
there were more apples stored by grow¬ 
ers than in ordinary years. There were 
more apples than expected and more ma¬ 
tured than usual. For the latter reason 
it was thought the common storage 
apples would not keep, but demand was 
lighter than usual on account of the 
apples being produced in nearly every 
section where apples are grown, and the 
high price of living with the extreme 
cold Winter, to keep the hucksters and 
peddlers from distributing apples, have 
all worked to depress the apple market. 
The shortage of cars has been a great 
drawback also, and after the cars have 
been secured and loaded, have been side¬ 
tracked for a week at a time. I am told 
two train loads of live stock were frozen 
on the main line of Central between 
Rochester and Syracuse. I loaded a car 
of fancy Greenings at the storage; the 
railway drew them out of town a mile, 
put them on a siding for over two days 
with the mercury 14 degrees below zero. 
c. 
R. N.-Y.—The report that live stock 
were frozen to death is correct. 
The Ontario Apple Again. —On page 9 
J. P. G., Hudson, Mass., asks a question in 
answer to which Prof. Beach in “Apples 
of New York” should be quoted instead of 
roughly guessed at. As he gives 21 refer¬ 
ences it may safely be assumed that the 
“Ontario” is not a foundling. He says 
that the Ontario was “originated by Charles 
Arnold, Paris, Ont., by crossing Northern 
Spy with Wagener.” “Fruit large to very 
large, uniform in size and shape. Form 
oblate to roundish inclined to conic, dis¬ 
tinctly ribbed or even angular,” etc. “Skin 
thin, tough, bright pale yellow or greenish, 
more or less washed with brownish-red, 
faintly splashed with carmine, in highly 
colored specimens becoming bright pinkish- 
red striped with bright carmine.” “Flesh 
whitish tinged with yellow, rather firm, 
moderately fine or a little coarse, crisp, 
tender, very juicy, sprightly, rather brisk 
eubacid, more so than Northern Spy; aro¬ 
matic, good to very good ; especially desir¬ 
able for culinary use.” The above coincides 
with his preceeding comment: “Fruit In 
many respects intermediate in character 
between its parents, Northern Spy and 
Wagener.” As the variety is highly pro¬ 
ductive, hardy and highly esteemed both for 
commercial purposes and for home use, in 
Ontario and in Michigan he recommends it 
as “certainly worthy of trial in northern 
New York and in those portions of the State 
where the Spy succeeds best.” He says: 
“It is in season from November to March 
or April.” i. s. A . 
Voorheesville, N. Y. 
When you write advertisers mention The 
R. N.-Y. and you’ll get a quick reply and a 
“square deal.” See guarantee editorial page. 
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