THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN. 
67 
RATES TO OMAHA. 
The chairman of the Western Passenger Association gives 
the following information regarding railroad rates to the con¬ 
vention : 
Chicago, May 4 , 1898 . 
Mr. George C. Seageii, 
Secretary American Association of Nurserymen , 
Rochester, N. Y. 
Dear Sir :—Referring to recent correspondence regarding reduced 
rates for the annual convention of the American Association of 
Nurserymen to be held in Omaha, Neb., June 8 - 9 , 1898 , beg to advise 
that the following arrangements have been announced for the Trans- 
Mississippi Exposition at Omaha, Neb., June 1 —November 1 , 1898 , 
which it is thought will take care of your meeting, viz.: 
Round trip summer tourist rate based on eighty per cent, of double 
locals from all points in Eastern Committee and Trans-Missouri terri¬ 
tories of this Association ; tickets to be sold June 1 to October 15 , 1898 , 
inclusive, good to return until November 15 , 1898 . 
In addition to the above, rate of one and one-third fare for the round 
trip will also be in effect from all Western Passenger Association terri¬ 
tory cast of and including Colorado common points and Cheyenne, 
except that rates from the following points shall be as follows, viz.: 
Chicago, $ 20 . 00 ; Peoria, $ 17 . 00 ; St. Louis, $ 17 . 00 ; Denver, $ 25 . 00 ; 
Colorado Springs, $ 25 . 00 ; Pueblo, $ 25 . 00 ; St. Paul and Minneapolis, 
$ 15 . 55 . Tickets to be sold at these rates June 1 to October 30 , in¬ 
clusive, limited to return thirty days from date of sale, but not to ex¬ 
ceed November 15 , 1898 . 
It has been agreed that the only rates which will be tendered to lines 
outside the territory of the Western Passenger Association are the 
round-trip summer tourist rates based on eighty per cent, of double 
locals. Respectfully, 
B. D. Caldwell, Chairman. 
MR. HALE’S OPINION. 
Editor National Nurseryman : 
Some one has said “ All men are liars.” From my personal 
acquaintance with the great number of people in the nursery 
trade I have always believed that they were excluded from this 
special class, but when I come to read in your May issue the 
glowing reports of increased and profitable nursery trade all 
over the country, I begin to wonder if the nurseryman was 
not coming down to the average of the rest of mankind. For 
through close personal contact and inside information from 
quite a number of the most progressive and generally accepted 
pro perous and reliable nursery firms of the country, and the 
facts and figures of my own little nursery business, the spring 
of ’98 is reckoned to be the most unsatisfactory in point of 
direct sales to planters and falling off in cash receipts of any 
year for many past, and so it strikes many of us as a little 
peculiar that there should have been so much prosperity afloat 
and none of us even get a smell of it, and while there are vari¬ 
ous little troubles that count in a local way as effecting any one 
of us, the main difficulty seems to have been too many trees 
and plants grown by the wholesale nursery trade, a desperate 
fear that all would not be sold and the circulating of wholesale 
circulars to anybody who had ever been known to buy as many 
as one-half dozen trees. 
I have before me at the present time a letter sent out by a 
New York nurseryman on the 5th of April to small planters 
all over the country offering apples, pears, cherries and plums 
at from 5 to 8 cents ; raspberries, strawberries, currants, etc., 
at less than one-half usual retail rates, and as this letter was 
received by a man who never in his life had bought as many as 
a half dozen trees in a season, it would indicate that the dis¬ 
tribution was pretty general. In some cases farmers bought 
these trees by the hundred or thousand and peddled them out 
to their neighbors at an advance of a cent or two per tree, and 
so the general impression has gone abroad that the nurserymen 
are ready to dump their wares upon planters at any price they 
are willing to pay. 
And after all the “whistling” in the May number for the 
purpose of “ keeping up courage,” it seems to me that a plain 
statement of the case is, that the nursery business is in a sadly 
demoralized condition and will never be any better until there 
is a very material curtailment in propagation and the maintain- 
ing of prices that will give greater returns for the labor and 
money expended in the propagation. 
Those of us who have other and greater interests can stand 
it all right and continue the nursery business for fun, but 
where one has to make his entire living out of that business 
there must be a radical change or a tremendous lot of failures 
are sure within the next year or two. Planters as well as 
nurserymen are being demoralized by present methods. Too 
many orchards are being put out without careful thought and 
preparation, and in the end they are sure to be demoralizers 
of our horticultural interests. 
J. H. Hale. 
South Glastonbury, Conn., May 24, 1898. 
se* m 1 
Wabash R. R. 
Oilers Unexcelled Service 
to 
Daily Vestibuled Trains, 
BUFFALO-to-CHICAGO. 
Daily Vestibuled Trains, 
-BUFFALO to-x 
ST. LOUIS, KANSAS CITY and OMAHA. 
FREE RECLINING CHAIR CARS. 
WAGNER SLEEFING CARS. 
WABASH DINING CARS. 
Full information regarding rates, etc., cheerfully given. 
.. .Address,.--- - *»-- 
O. S. CRANE, G. P. dr T. A., 
St. Louis, Mo. 
JAMES GASS, R. E. KELLEY, 
N. Y. S. P. A., G. A. P. D., 
287 Main, Buffalo, N. Y. 287 Main , Buffalo, N. Y. 
A man on salary and commission, or a share of the profits, 
to work V\/ A |\I T P n UP a 
force of Y ▼ A 1^1 I JL-* L/ agents. 
Address “M,” care NATIONAL NURSERYMAN. 
