THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN. 
83 
Ifn Common Council. 
Editor National Nurseryman: 
Your issue of July just received. I am glad to get it as 1 
had heard but little about the convention at Chicago. I never 
was so put out by being shut in at home. I could not get out 
either way for three days on account of the washouts. Such 
a thing never happened here before. I read what our friend 
Albaugh said as to being a member for twenty-one years. 
Well, I can discount him as I am a charter member of the 
American Association and have attended every meeting except 
one at Rochester and the one just held at Chicago. 
I am glad to hear that we are not to be bothered in the 
future with long papers at the conventions. The question box 
is much better. Z. K. Jewett. 
Sparta, Wis., July 10, 1899. 
THE TRUTH IS SUFFICIENT. 
Editor National Nurseryman : 
“ It is human to err,” and, as men have aspirations, it is also 
human to complain. Error of the human family is sometimes 
charged to the deficiency of higher or fixed laws, blaming 
nature for our own mistakes. To reach the point more 
directly, there has been a custom, almost from the beginning 
of the nursery business, to sell the products of the nursery by 
canvassers traveling from house to house. While this has been 
profitable to some salesmen, others found it necessary to hus¬ 
tle the business in order to make it profitable, while still others 
even to make fair wages, had to resort to schemes, tricks and 
misleading theories that they might instil enthusiasm into the 
purchaser and thereby unload the stock to an uninformed cus¬ 
tomer at an advanced price. This line has been worked to 
such an outrageous rate that the average grower has become 
suspicious of all persons who sell trees, and in fact the nur¬ 
serymen and salesmen are all classed on about the line as that 
of the lightning rod peddlers. The nursery salesman meeting 
a stranger finds that as soon as the subject is introduced the 
former recoils and tries to resist all influence the former may 
try to exert on the would-be customer, who trembles at any 
further introduction from the salesman. 
It is not necessary here to enumerate the multiplicity of 
frauds perpetrated in the sale of nursery stock on the unin¬ 
formed buyer. Such things as that should not be winked at 
by the nurseryman. We have in existence the American Asso¬ 
ciation of Nurserymen, of which the membership is largely 
composed of the leading citizens of America and Europe, men 
who would be loath to be charged with a fraud in a single 
order if they should realize a thousand times the value. There 
are in America wholesale and retail nurseries. Our interests 
are mutual and if it is necessary to employ salesmen, why not 
put catalogues in these salesmen’s hands, describing and de¬ 
lineating the various kinds of stock correctly, and in tiue 
names, terms and classes, and if any man opens up a false 
theory with the intent of perpetrating a fraud in the sale of 
nursery stock, arrest him, as the people of Ames, Iowa, did the 
man who was selling by the thousands a hardy peach that was 
alleged to be frost proof, standing the rigid climate of Iowa 
and Dakota. 
The only mistake of Our Horticultural Visitor in giving men¬ 
tion of the above case is in not giving the name of the man 
who was arrested. Similar cases could be made almost every 
day the year around, and should, and will, be done if they 
come in reach of this vicinity. The nurseryman sometimes 
hesitates to speak of his profession under certain circumstances, 
as some one maybe ready to'make an unwarranted remaik 
about his business. These frauds should be weeded out of the 
business. The truth in fruit growing is proof sufficient to in¬ 
duce a progressive man to buy trees and plant an orchard 
either large or small. The nurseryman will realize more in 
this way in the end than to advance a false theory to an unin¬ 
formed man who will become discouraged as soon as he finds 
that he has been duped into buying more theory than trees. 
Being associated with the farmers’ institutes, lecturing on 
practical horticulture, the writer often wonders how some men 
can swindle the people time after time and evade the law as 
they do. I can’t at this time recall a single institute where 
there was not one or more persons who had some grievance to 
relate in which he had suffered by buying some great thing at 
an extravagant price. S. H. Linton. 
Marceline, Mo., July 21, 1899. 
SCALE AND LADY “BIRDS.” 
Editor National Nurseryman : 
The National Nurseryman has always been particularly 
interesting to me in the matter of bugology, because it splices 
the scientific aspect of the cases with sound practical hints 
such as those given in the last issue by Mr. Kirkpatrick of 
Texas. 
We have a great reputation for mosquitos and other insect 
plagues in New Jersey, you know, and we have a most admir¬ 
able staff of gentlemen to look after them, presided over by 
Professor Smith who I have heard give delightfully illustrated 
lectures on the “San Jose Scale.” But I failed to identify 
his lantern slides and descriptions altogether, and the pro¬ 
fessor didn’t have a sample along, either living or dead. 
Moreover, an inquiry as to its identity with a scale intro¬ 
duced by Thomas Hogg on plants from Japan about twenty- 
five years ago, could not be answered satisfactorily. 
I knew something about the pest at the time, and have often 
had a touch of it since, but I am not sure to-day whether the 
variable beast is quite the same as they make all the bother 
about, and call the “San Jose Scale.” A Japanese corres¬ 
pondent of the Country Gentlemen recently stated that no 
such scale ever existed in Japan. 
So what is a body to conclude ? Is the “ bug ” a mere 
evolution or not ? Maybe it doesn’t matter ! ! 
But here is another curious thing. E. Dwight Sanderson, 
an entomologist of Maryland says (p. 69) : Hardly had the 
‘ San Jose Scale ’ commenced to get a start in the East, before 
it was attacked both by internal parasites and the predaceous 
lady ‘ birds.’ Of the latter, but two specimens are commonly 
found on scale-infested trees in the East. Even more efficient 
are the little black beetles known as Pentilia miscella.” 
Now, ought not laws to be passed for the protection of the 
“predaceous ladybirds,” and not run the risk of suffocating 
the poor things with hydrocyanic acid gas ? 
Tames MacPherson. 
# J 
Trenton, N. J., July 12, 1899. 
CANNOT keep house without it. 
George A. Sweet, Dansville, N. Y.: "Enclosed find $1 for 
another year as we cannot keep house without the monthly visit of 
your magazine.” 
