3.^8 
March 14, 
rHfc£ FiLJ RAL, 
If the average Farmer is as shrewd 
a merchant as he is said to be—and we know 
he is—the fact explains why so many 
Mitchell cars are in daily use on the farm . 
It is because the Mitchell is a 
sturdy and lasting proposition and may be 
maintained with maximum economy that the farmer 
finds it suited to his needs. When he buys it he re¬ 
alizes that he has made an investment which pays 
big dividends in efficiency. 
The car that does the most work, 
lasts the longest and can be kept up with 
the least expense for repairs, is the car that the Business 
Farmer needs and this we declare to he the Mitchell 
because years of experience have proved it definitely. 
The purpose of this advertise- 
ment is to request you Business Farmers to 
go at once to the nearest Mitchell dealer, examine 
the car carefully, take a ride in it and d?'ive it yourself 
so as to get the personal feel and the personal touch. 
If it proves its merit it is the car you want. That’s 
the only way to buy an automobile and the only 
real way to sell one. 
Equipment of All the Mitchell Models That is Included in the List Prices: 
Electric self-starter and generatoi—electr's lights—electric horn—electric mag¬ 
netic exploring lamp—speedometer—Tungsten valves—mohair top and dust 
cover—Jiffy quick-action side curtains—quick-action rain vision wind-shield.— 
demountable rims with one extra—double extra tire carriers—Bair bow 
holders—license plate bracket—pump, jack and complete set of tools. 
Prices F. O. B. Racine 
—GRAPEVINES 
CD varieties. Also Small Fruit*, Trw«, rtc. Best rooted 
stock, (iemiine, cheap. 2 snmple vines—10c. Descriptive 
price list free. Lewis Roesch, Box D. Fredonia, N. Y. 
STRAWBERRY, RASPBERRY, BLACKBERRY, 
ASPARAGUS, VEGETABLE PLANTS 
All loading varieties. Catalogue free. HA Hit Y 
I,. StJIURHS, KKMSKNBUKG, N. Y. 
NEW-YORKER 
EXPERIENCE WITH NURSERYMEN. 
Making Up An Order. —Two years 
ago, having decided to plant four acres 
to fruit trees, I sent for more than a 
dozen catalogues. This plan proved to 
be a good one, as some nurserymen 
seemed to be short on some sorts, and 
the prices seemed too high on such ; while 
another’s price might be reasonable he 
might not have all the varieties or size 
wanted. When it came to quality and 
freedom from disease, 1 only.had their 
word for it. Besides, not having dealt 
with a majority of the firms I decided 
to divide my order. This plan also 
proved a good one, as some of the stock 
was unsatisfactory; in other cases there 
was delay in shipment or no shipment at 
all. Having spent considerable time try¬ 
ing to find out what few commercial var¬ 
ieties would probably prove most profit¬ 
able under my conditions I was not in¬ 
clined to want some nurseryman to sub¬ 
stitute something “just as good” in place 
of varieties ordered, so I sent my orders 
in February with instructions to ship 
April 15. I was especially anxious to 
get just the varieties of apples ordered, 
as these were to be the real orchard, 
with the peaches, cherries, plums and 
dwarf pears for borders and fillers. 
This method of planting is open to crit¬ 
icism, but I am also raising poultry, and 
want plenty of shade. By taking good 
care of the trees, I hope to get several 
crops of fruit before it will be necessary 
to cut out the smaller fruits. 
Varying Varieties. —In reading over 
the average catalogue one is led to be¬ 
lieve that each variety of peaches, for in¬ 
stance, is at least good, better or best. 
This may be true under varying condi¬ 
tions. Some of the most profitable var¬ 
ieties in favored locations are almost 
worthless in others. Why cannot a nur¬ 
seryman state under what conditions a 
certain variety is at its best and tell 
prospective buyers what conditions to 
avoid? Of course this advice would of 
necessity be general. Of the dozen or 
more catalogues received just one did 
this. A tree may bear excellent fruit, 
but the tree itself may be such a poor 
grower or so subject to disease, or such 
a shy bearer, or the fruit may have some 
fault or defect that may make it almost 
worthless from a commercial standpoint, 
but we seldom find anything about it in 
the average catalogue. A. long list of 
varieties seems very impressive to the 
novice, and is the means undoubtedly of 
making many sales as well as disappoint¬ 
ed customers. Would there not be more 
profit in growing and shipping 100,000 
trees of 10 varieties than of 50? 
More Information Wanted. —There 
may be an excuse for so many varieties, 
because where one lives in a favored lo¬ 
cation he likes to grow the better sorts 
which might not succeed under other con¬ 
ditions. Why not give some hint as to 
the conditions necessary for a certain 
variety to do its best? Some varieties 
are described as medium to large. To 
his disgust the grower finds the tree 
bears undersized and almost worthless 
fruit. If the catalogue had stated that 
this particular variety when properly 
thinned would produce good-sized fruit 
tin* nurseryman would probably have re¬ 
tained a valued customer, while the lat¬ 
ter would have got profitable returns for 
time and money spent, while otherwise 
he grubs out valuable trees in disgust, 
thinking the nurseryman had willfully 
misrepresented this particular variety or 
had sent him a worthless substitute. 
A Case Of Crown-Gait,. —About the 
middle of April the trees began to arrive. 
Among the first lot were some Sutton 
trees. After setting a few trees I be¬ 
came suspicious of crown-gall. Never 
having had any experience with this be¬ 
fore I wanted to go a little slow. I took 
a three-inch section of one of the sup¬ 
posedly affected trees and sent it to the 
experiment station for examination and 
heeled in the rest of the “suspects” and 
waited for a reply. This came in due 
time advising me to destroy every af¬ 
fected tree. I destroyed just one-half of 
the lot. A number of Grimes were add¬ 
ed to the Sutton’s discards. I wrote 
the firm from whom I bought the trees. 
They acknowledged they had some crown- 
gall in their nursery, hut insisted that 
this was of little or no damage to a tree, 
citing as evidence that they had been of¬ 
fered a price for all their diseased stock 
by an experienced grower. At the same 
time they seemed anxious to replace the 
trees the following Fall or Spring as I 
might wish. As I had set one-year-old 
trees I asked them to furnish me their 
best two-year-old trees, I to pay the dif¬ 
ference, if there were any, so that all my 
trees might be as uniform in size as pos¬ 
sible. Last Spring the new trees came 
and they were as fine a lot of trees as I 
ever saw. The bunch of Suttons had 
just two and one half tags on, one 
marked “Sutton,” one “Wagoner,” the 
other half “Wag”—the name of the em¬ 
ployee, I suppose who forget to remove 
the original labels. 
Late Strawberries. —My original or¬ 
der included several hundred strawberry 
plants. I waited till nearly the first of 
June and wrote them about the matter. 
They replied saying it was too late to 
ship the plants, returned the money and 
expressed the hope that I would see fit 
to order again. Neither their hopes nor 
mine produced many fancy berries the 
following season. 
More Trials. —Another lot of trees 
from a different source contained 10 
diseased trees. These were replaced as 
in the former case. Three out of these 
10 were diseased. I am looking daily for 
that nurseryman’s 1014 catalogue, as I 
am still much interested in fruit and I 
do enjoy looking at the beautiful pro¬ 
ducts of the lithographer’s art. During 
the last week in May I received 400 out 
of a thousand strawberry plants ordered 
from still another grower. Money was 
returned for plants not shipped. The 
weather was dry and hot and the plants, 
evidently, had been in cold storage. One 
variety especially was entirely brown 
except for a spindling little white sprout 
in the center. I wrote them about this 
shipment and they replied that they could 
not supply the other varieties, and that 
if I had not specified no substitution in 
my order they would have been able to 
furnish me the whole thousand plants of 
varieties that would do me as much 
good as those ordered. They did not 
explain why it took them three months 
from the time the order was received till 
it was shipped to discover that they 
were short on those particular varieties. 
Neither did they explain how I was to 
get a crop the following year from the 
400 worthless plants and the 600 they 
didn’t ship. 
Delayed Travel. —I ordered nearly 
3,000 raspberry and blackberry bushes 
from a nursery company less than 350 
miles distant. This shipment was 19 
days on the road. My father had a ship¬ 
ment billed out from the same place on 
the same day which reached .here 10 
days ahead of mine. Of course many of 
the plants died, due to no fault of the 
company shipping thorn. Out of 2,500 
strawberry plants ordered that Spring. 
450, all from one firm, lived and did 
well. In this ease the plants were vig¬ 
orous. fresh-dug and shipment prompt. 
Valuable Experience. —My experi¬ 
ence has been of value to me. I have 
learned that those who toot their horn 
the loudest, frequently do so through ne¬ 
cessity. and that those who make the 
greatest claims for honesty, square-deal¬ 
ing, superior stock, unusual facilities for 
handling orders, long years of experience, 
etc., do not always measure up to those 
who devote their catalogues to fair de¬ 
scriptions of their stock. I learned also 
that while a nurseryman’s pear or apple 
trees, for instance may be exceptionally 
fine, his peach trees may be very infer¬ 
ior. It certainly pays, where one is to 
plant a considerable number of trees, to 
visit a few reliable nurseries, and com¬ 
pare quality and prices, especially the 
former, for, while the highest priced tree 
is not necessarily the best, the cheaper 
ones are frequently dear at any price. I 
have not had in mind in writing my 
experience in dealing with nurserymen 
creating the impression that, as a class, 
they are dishonest because this is not 
the case, as I found it, for I bought many 
lots of trees which proved highly satis¬ 
factory, and I realize that my experience 
taken as a whole was a little unusual. 
I am convinced of one fact, that is, one 
cannot make a fortune at once sitting be¬ 
side the stove with a catalogue in one 
hand and a lead pencil in the other. 
Ohio. «T. D. PKIC’KETT. 
He: “I shall never marry until I meet 
a woman who is my direct opposite.” 
She (encouragingly): “Well, my friend, 
there are numbers of bright, intelligent 
girls in this neighborhood.’—Credit Lost. 
