22 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
THE DESIRABILITY OF NURSERYMEN URGING 
UNIVERSAL SPRAYING AMONG SMALL 
OR CHARD I STS 
Read Before the Meeting of the Western Association of 
Nurserymen, by Paul C. Stark. 
T HE question might be asked why I am confining my 
remarks regarding spraying, to the small or- 
chardists without reference to the large com¬ 
mercial orchardist. It is because the man with a com¬ 
mercial orchard has learned, through experience, in re¬ 
cent years, that he MUST spray in order to make money 
from his fruit. If he has not sprayed, his balance has 
been on the wrong side of the ledger. 
On the the other hand, the small orchardist (the man 
growing fruit. 
Why does this state of affairs concern the nursery¬ 
man? It is of direct concern to the nursery interests be¬ 
cause the orchardist ! s success means the nurserymen’s 
success. The orchards already planted must pay good 
profits in order to encourage the planting of more or¬ 
chards and consequently an increased business for the 
nurseryman. 
Most fruit growers, with small orchards, look on the 
nurseryman as a sort of bureau of information, generally 
considering the nurserymens’ advice as final and com¬ 
plete. In the past there was some hesitation about 
advising small fruit growers to spray, lest they get the 
impression that fruit growing is too complex and the 
methods of orchard management too expensive. How¬ 
ever, spraying methods are now so much simplified that 
A view in the Royal Tottenham Nurs., Ltd., Dedemsvaart , Holland 
A DUTCH NURSERY THAT SPECIALIZES ON 
HERBACEOUS PERENNIALS 
The accompanying pictures illustrate a part of the 
Royal Tottenham Nurseries of Dedemsvaart, Holland. 
This is one of the largest nurseries in Holland and their 
specialty is hardy perennials, rock plants and aquatics, 
in addition to which they grow some evergreens and 
general nursery stock. 
This firm issues one of the most complete wholesale 
catalogues of 56 pages, listing approximately 1500 varie¬ 
ties of plants; they ship to America, Australia. Japan and 
European countries. Their American agents are Mc- 
Hutchison & Co., 17 Murray Street, New York. 
with a home orchard or an orchard for local market) is, 
in many cases, ignorant of the elementary principles of 
spraying and the increased profit from sprayed fruit com¬ 
pared v ith unsprayed fruit. In most cases, the man with 
a small orchard has read just enough about spraying to 
get the idea that it is very expensive, very complex and 
requires too much money to get a spraying outfit—and 
consequently lie decides that his orchard is too small to 
bother with. The result is that he does not spray and the 
fruit he grows is second class, diseased and wormy. It is 
natural for a man. who has an experience of this kind, to 
become discouraged and say that there is no money in 
it is difficult to go wrong and the experience of thousands 
of fruit growers throughout the country has proven that 
spraying pays and pays big. 
Experience is the best of teachers, but we should re¬ 
member that success does not depend on never making 
mistakes, but in never making the same mistake twice. 
Some years ago, before the science of spraying was fully 
understood or simplified by careful experiments, the 
scale insects and other pests got the best of the fruit 
growers and many orchards were killed out. It seemed 
to many that the fruit business was doomed, and as a re¬ 
sult thousands of orchards were cut out. However, the 
