Cbe IRatfonal nurseryman. 
FOR GROWERS AND DEALERS IN NURSERY STOCK 
The National Nurseryman Publishing Co., Incorporated 
Vol. XXIII. ROCHESTER, N. Y., MARCH, 1915. No. 3. 
“PUT ON CHAINS AND STOP SKIDDING” 
A. C. Hanson , Sales Manager , Western Office , Hawks , 
Nursery Co., Wauwatosa , WVs. 
A clothing salesman, new at the business, was fatally 
injured in a wreck and was asked if he had a last re¬ 
quest to make. He replied, ‘ Wire my house and get the 
lowest price on those suits I have been selling.” It 
seems he had been instructed at the start never to cut 
prices, yet, three orders, each lower in price than the 
first, had been accepted. 
What must the average customer think when in the 
course of a year, agents representing different firms call, 
each with a different price for the same article; each 
claiming his stock the best and with reasonable proof in 
support of his contention. 
Is there one good reason why retail nurserymen oper¬ 
ating in the eastern, middle, central and western states 
should not sell at somewhere near the same prices? 
How many retail nurserymen are there who know 
what it is costing them to do business? How many re¬ 
tail nurserymen are influenced in their price making by 
what it is costing them to get business? On July 1st of 
each year, the retail nurseryman knows for certain 
whether he played even; made money or lost it. If he 
has made money, does he know whether it was due to a 
lower cost in getting business or because wholesale 
prices were favorable to the retail prices he made a year 
ahead; or was his gain due to being lucky in drawing 
from the “grabhag” a bunch of extra good salesmen who 
boosted the sales average? 
Letters were recently sent to thirty representative re¬ 
tail nurserymen in different sections; asking for an ex¬ 
change of data touching costs affecting the selling end of 
the business. Twenty-four replies expressed keen in¬ 
terest in the questions raised. Seventeen admitted prac¬ 
tically no knowledge of costs. Four gave the vaguest 
kind of estimates. Only two had positive data and one 
said he did not care. Admitting that applications an 1 
costing from $3.50 to $10.00 each, according to methods 
employed and only a small per cent, bringing in business, 
isn’t it a fact that one should know what his business is 
costing per thousand and make his prices accordingly? 
The cost of conducting a retail nursery business is 
surely rising and it behooves every one to trim sails ac¬ 
cordingly. The man who knows what his business is 
costing to run and mingles conservatism with aggressive¬ 
ness, is the man who will come out on top. The leaks in 
a retail nursery business are endless in variety and very 
expensive as a whole. Bad accounts, indifferent de¬ 
livery agents, expensive outfits lost and stolen, replacing 
stock, are things which contribute to a marked decrease 
in profits. The upward trend in commissions is another 
thing for the nurserymen to worry about. Nursery sales¬ 
men have been mollycoddled too much. We have all 
done our share toward putting the business where it is 
now, in this respect. Each nurseryman anxious to make 
a showing, eager to sell more than he did last year, has 
put a premium on the agent who gets the business, and 
the net result, he gets what he asks and in many cases, 
he does the dictating and the bossing instead of the man 
who owns the business. 
A firm is judged, largely by the character of its rep¬ 
resentatives. It is time for an “uplift” movement to im¬ 
prove the tone of the average agency force. There has 
been all together too much of the “anything to get the 
business” spirit. There is not one other standard bus¬ 
iness where a man (a perfect stranger) can write for 
supplies as he does to nurserymen and get a complete 
outfit and all credentials, ready to start out and seek 
whom he may devour. Many undesirables could be elim¬ 
inated right on the start, either by a cash deposit for the 
outfit or at the very least, bona-fide references before 
supplies were sent. 
Unnecessarily high commissions, continual premium 
awards, bonuses, and replacing stock free, are a source 
of expense, alongside of which a proportionate advance in 
the price of stock has not kept pace. The principle of 
the thing is all wrong and steps should he taken to rem¬ 
edy matters before the hole is so big it will engulf us all. 
Readers of the “Saturday Evening Post” must have 
read some of the excellent articles on trade associations 
that ran a year ago. These articles described at length 
the troubles and remedies applied to different kinds of 
business. Each Association had the same kind of a 
story to tell, about how hard it was to start the “get to¬ 
gether” movement. The little fellow in the business be¬ 
ing suspicious of a frameup on the part of the big fellow 
