142 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN. 
broker was paying the same nurseryman himself. Don’t answer some 
disgruntled farmer’s letter, and say such a man is not your agent, but is 
only buying stock of you. I think of all the mean tricks in the calendar 
of meanness, that is the meanest. Just think of the poor fellow’s feel¬ 
ings when the farmer pulls the letter from his pocket, and shoves it up 
before the astonished agent’s eyes and says, “I wont pay for that 
bill of trees I bought of you. You are a liar, you are, I have just got 
a letter from the nurseryman, and he says yon are not his agent, and 
that you are only buying your trees of him.” And then he tells every 
one he sees, and they do the same thing, and all the poor fellow’s hard 
work is gone, all his interest is gone as well, and all the good things he 
has said about the nursery, and all the pleasant things he has said about 
the man who owns the nursery, the. farmer says are lies (and I about 
believe the fellow is right, too). If you get such letters, answer them 
and tell Mr. Farmer that Mr. Blatde is your agent, and anything bought 
of him will be all right. You can pack a bill of trees just as honestly 
for a broker or agent, as if the man sent the order direct himself. 
That “ no agent ” business always did sound to me like “odds and 
ends and long varieties.” If you get a letter from any one near your 
agent wanting trees, enclose it in an envelope and direct it to him and 
let him sell the bill himself, and I will guarantee it is the best advertise¬ 
ment you will ever have in that vicinity. I can recall many such letters 
forwarded to me in the East, when I was in the trade there. 
And now, my fellow members, I believe the trade here will year by 
year, more and more, be done by the traveling salesman. I also believe 
in the near future that you, as well as myself will say that in order to 
more readily dispose of our nursery stock, at fair prices, it is necessary 
for us to employ men of special talent in our line, so that we can 
realize fair profit for our labor. I do not mean by that, that we should 
organize to create exorbitant prices, but fair prices to grower and fair 
prices to the planter is but equal fairness to both. 
THEORIES. 
Editor of The Natiomal Nurseryman: 
The October number of The National Nurseryman 
interested me not a little, Theorists are a plenty. They 
crop up everywhere in connection with horticulture, may 
be because so wide a subject affords an abundance of 
room. Anyway, as Mr. Watrous says, even a practitioner 
must approach them with the “fear” that he will be 
treated as a “ heretic ” and “ infidel.” 
I remember that years ago Mr. W. Saunders took me 
over his young Russian apple orchard, and I also remem¬ 
ber expressing a good deal of surprise at the experiment 
on the general ground that the apple quite commonly 
objects to southing. However, Mr. Saunders explained 
that they were intended for the Northwest, and after ask¬ 
ing him why they were not sent there at once, instead of 
taking up time, and labor, and ground, at Washington, I 
discussed Russian apples from my mind until now and 
again a sample prematurely ripened, would be forced upon 
my attention. The impression I received was that nearly 
all of those apples ripened ahead of their season. In 
later years I have noticed that the majority do so, no 
matter how far north they are taken. Now, so far as I 
know they have been tried almost altogether in the corn 
or maize belt. As I have said, I approach the distin¬ 
guished professors and specialists with “ fear ” and trembl¬ 
ing, but I want to ask them a single question—did they 
derive the majority, or indeed, any of the Russian apples 
from the maize or “ corn ” belt, and if not, why not ? 
I have been pained beyond expression during my 
American life at the absolutely unscientific recklessness 
with which professional gentlemen assume a superiority 
of knowledge, and at the freezing haughtiness with which 
they receive suggestions from “ unknown ” men. I have , 
noticed that some of them (please note that I admit ex¬ 
ceptions) even impute selfish a-nd impure motives to those 
who dare to differ from them, and I think such a spirit 
mean and unscientific. 
After I have felt like writing a note of warning on 
matters which seemed to clash with my limited observa¬ 
tions in geographical botany, indeed, I have sometimes 
written them, but I have always felt that I might be 
trespassing upon vested scientific rights. For instance, I 
have always known that the orange Mr. Van Deman 
writes about, was labeled the “ Bahia ;” I have a note of 
a special characteristic of that orange, taken from a 
single plant in the orangery at Washington, which has not 
seemingly been recognized, and I am glad to know the 
synonymy I may possibly have to wrestle with if ever I 
wish to point it out. 
I lived for years at one of the greatest altitudes at 
which the wild orange grows in Asia ; I assure you as I 
have often assured my investing friends before, that the 
temperature never falls below 40 degrees Fahrenheit, and I 
have often wondered why no scientist ever brought that 
simple fact to notice with professional authority. Of 
course, I have supposed they had taken pains to inform 
themselves But no ! Nothing short of a freezing, hard, 
repeated, and disastrous, would do for the Floridian, and 
I am just beginning to doubt the efficacy of that. And 
so with the tea experiments, no one could have warned 
Le Due, and Saunders, and others more emphatically 
and repeatedly than I, only to be “turned down” as a 
meddlesome ignoramus ! 
But what odds? Americans have money to burn— 
hundreds and thousands—yes, millions of it! 
I believe I was one of the first to suggest the estab¬ 
lishment of experiment stations, and spoke my sugges¬ 
tions much more freely than I wrote them. I did not 
conceive in 1876 to 1879 that they would be just what 
they are, or I should have gone deeper into detail. Lately 
I have thought it may not yet be too late. I will only 
say here that I know of experiment stations under a single 
head more effective by far than all of ours put together. 
But there is money to burn -not at both ends, though, I 
pray you ! 
Rhododendrons : who are the theorizers about rhodo¬ 
dendrons ? What has drought got to do with rhododen¬ 
drons, anyhow ? I have seen hundreds upon hundreds of 
acres of them and I never have seen an established one 
of them killed by drought (no, not even a famine 
drought), neither in the far away Orient or the Appala¬ 
chian ranges of the Occident. The rhododendrons 
spoken of are different, I know—but my dear friends, 
would it not be just as well for you to take the trouble to 
find out what you are talking about? Do you suppose 
that you can run amuck through all the earth with your 
