The National Nurseryman. 
FOR GROWERS AND DEALERS IN NURSERY STOCK. 
Copyright, 1896, by the National Nurseryman Publishing Co. 
Vol. IV. ROCHESTER. N. Y., JUNE, 1896. No. > 
SITUATION IN THE NORTHWEST. 
LAKE City, Minn., May 9—J. Cole Doughty, Secre¬ 
tary Jewell Nursery Co.: “Trade was excessively dull 
throughout the winter and business was secured only by 
a persistent and vigorous effort but as soon as it began to 
warm up, orders began to come in very rapidly, and we 
cleaned out our stock much closer than we anticipated at 
the beginning of the packing season. Our spring season 
was characterized by very warm rains and high tempera¬ 
ture, which necessarily rendered it very short, in conse¬ 
quence of which we have been compelled to decline con¬ 
siderable business and cancel a great many desirable 
orders. On the whole, our sales will aggregate fully as 
much as we expected. 
“The retail trade is being greatly injured throughout 
the Northwest by the promiscuous circulation of whole¬ 
sale prices by nurserymen. In addition to this, most of 
the country has been covered by model orchard fiends 
who destroy territory most effectually, and it takes a 
long time tc recover. Many of these gangs are repre¬ 
senting what have heretofore been considered reputable 
nurserymen. The outlook for the future is certainly not 
as encouraging as we could hope.. The low prices of farm 
products, together with the cutting and slashing of 
nurserymen have produced a condition in the West that 
is far from pleasing to any firm which has large perman¬ 
ent investments. We are, however, in the swim and in it 
to stay. We hope to get our share of business with a 
reasonable margin of profit. Each year we are exercising 
greater care in growing and grading stock, are weeding 
out varieties that have proven to be failures and are 
going mighty slow on novelties. By persistent effort 
and keeping constantly at it, we trust to be able to secure 
a reasonable fall business. 
“The National Nurseryman comes to us regularly, 
loaded with good things. We note particularly the 
remarks of Mr. Stringfellow in a recent number. We 
trust you will follow up his suggestions so far as practica¬ 
ble. If his practice is correct, the nurserymen ought to 
know it, as many trees injured in digging, that are now 
thrown away, could be utilized. But even in the event 
that his theory is just the right thing in practice, it will 
take a long time to educate the community up to it, as 
trees without roots are generally regarded with about the 
same disfavor as checks without signatures. 
“ I spoke of the practice of nurserymen sending out 
wholesale lists promiscuously, and I have a strong illus¬ 
tration of this. One party makes wholesale prices and 
solicits trade from the nurserymen on. a postal card and 
at the bottom he tacks on the request, “ Postmaster 
please tack up! ” Any nurseryman who would give 
that man an order, ought to be hung on one of his 
own trees. Them’s my sentiments. We never send 
a wholesale price list to any man, except we knoiv 
him to be a nurseryman or dealer, until we have received 
his references. We may lose some trade by this practice, 
but we certainly do not steal half the meat out of the 
other fellow’s cocoanut. We leave a chance for some¬ 
body to make a fair bargain.” 
TIMELY SUGGESTIONS. 
I notice in the columns of your paper various causes 
assigned for the reign of low prices in nursery stock which 
have prevailed in the past few seasons. It goes without 
proof that our stock, like all other commodities, is subject 
to the immutable laws of supply and demand ; briefly 
stated—short stock, bull prices; surplus stock, bear 
prices. Now this is a general principle and one which 
no individual can correct, one must submit to it, as to 
the inevitable, but why each one in the business should 
do just all he can to aggravate the situation, it is difficult 
to account for except for the fact that the majority of 
tree growers have not been trained, and do not observe 
modern and approved business methods. 
The nurserymen themselves are to blame for much of 
the present situation. Some have injured the business 
in one way and some in another and we are all suffering 
from the results, and the wholesale business has become 
a retail business at wholesale prices. 
May we be pardoned for pointing out some things 
which look like errors in judgment on the part of our 
nurserymen. Excessive plantings should be avoided. 
We have known firms to plant 250,000 pear stocks in a 
single season, and follow it up with other large plantings 
when these same firms never sold before 10,000 standard 
pears. Others 1 ave planted 15,000 or 20,000 birches who 
never sold 500 birches in a season in their lives. The 
result invariably has been disaster to themselves and a 
permanent injury to all the producers of these commodi¬ 
ties. One must be careful in the attempt to control the 
trade by growing an excess of anything. Do not forget 
that we have 6,000 growers for 70,000,000 people now, 
and that in the palmy days of the business we had but 
500 growers to 50,000,000 people. 
The growers of nursery stock are not as prudent in 
protecting retail prices as they should be. Other lines of 
business keep secret their trade prices and do not reveal 
them to consumers. The majority of nurserymen cannot 
find out the trade prices of cloths, hats, shoes or groceries, 
but it seems as if every planter of a dozen trees can prove 
