236 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
how unnecessary and foolish it was to lose sleep and ap¬ 
petite over what might happen. Someone has said, "I 
am an old man and have had many troubles, hut the 
most of them never happened.” The most of our troubles 
do not happen, and blessed is that man who has found 
this out. 
Mr. E. C. Simmons, the hardware king of St. Louis 
recently mailed a letter to all his salesmen reading:— 
“Don’t worry. War or no war, freight rates or no 
freight rates, tariff or no tariff, baseball or no baseball, 
grape juice or champagne— the farmer is still on the job. 
Don’t forget him.” 
There is comfort and encouragement in this for every 
one of us. the farmer is still on the job, and he is today 
the best farmer this country has ever known; he is pro¬ 
ducing bigger crops, selling them for more money, and 
consequently spending more money than ever before, and 
he will buy our trees, and will have the coin to pay for 
them. See to it that he gets full one hundred cents in 
value for every dollar he spends with us. Don’t worry! 
Forget your worries in work. Go right along with your 
business affairs with a cheerful and hopeful spirit; plan 
conservatively, but work enthusiastically. Work, my 
friends, is the greatest blessing we have. Listen! 
Work 
Thank God for the price of it, 
For the beautiful conquering tide of it. 
Sweeping the life in its furious flood, 
Thrilling the arteries, cleansing the blood. 
Mastering stupor and dull despair, 
Moving the dreamer to do and dare. 
Oh. what is so good as the urge of it. 
And what is so glad as the surge of it, 
And what is so strong as its summons deep, 
Rousing the torpid soul from sleep? 
Work! 
Work! 
Thank God for the swing of it. 
For the clamoring, hammering ring of it; 
Passion of labor daily hurled 
On the mighty anvils of the world. 
Naturally a feeling of unrest is in the air. a feeling of 
uncertainty as to what the future will bring to us because 
of this horrible war in Europe, but my friends, we have 
a calm, cool, level-headed man in charge at Washington? 
and if it be possible for mortal man to steer this great 
nation clear of foreign entanglements, clear of war, that 
man will do so. And he should have behind him the 
solid, heartfelt sympathy and support of every citizen of 
this land. 
Here we are in Ibis beautiful city of Detroit with our 
troubles, which loomed so large to lots of us back in 
October and November, behind us. We have not perhaps 
cleaned up much profit this past year, possibly none at 
all. We may be weary of the manufactured, newspaper- 
made sort of prosperity, that we have enjoyed (?) the 
past twelve months, but remember that it is this “cheer 
up” talk with which our papers and magazines have been 
filled, that has given us all hope and faith in the future. 
Until the real thing is with us, let’s continue to read and 
write and preach Prosperity. Let’s imbibe all of Walt 
Mason’s gloom-chasers we can, and let’s firmly believe 
that real prosperity is awaiting us just around the corner. 
We are all feeling pretty good, prospects are a whole lot 
brighter and getting better every day—why should we 
worry or be downcast? Surely gentlemen, apple trees, 
Kieffer pear and apple seedlings have all struck bottom, 
it was with a dull, sickening thud to be sure, and it 
jarred us powerfully, but we are recovering and let’s 
forget it. 
With last season’s troubles behind us let us now cheer¬ 
fully and buoyantly face the problems of the coming sea¬ 
son and of the coming years. What are they? There is 
just one problem that I shall dwell on—only one—and 
that is this— can this Association by any change in its 
methods or organization make of itself a more efficient 
organization? An Organization that will really help to 
Control production , and to eliminate price cutting? An 
Organization that can keep closer watch on Legislative 
and Transportation matters than is possible under our 
present system of working through committees? Gan it 
be done? How shall we go about it? 
Mr. Mayhew of Texas in his paper “A Better Associa¬ 
tion” will. I hope, point the way for us. To my mind it 
is a great big problem—as big as that laid out for him¬ 
self by an old darkey preacher in Alabama, when he told 
his flock at a Wednesday evening prayer meeting, “I’m 
takin no tex dis evenin’, but I’se gwine to do three things; 
I’se gwine to explain de onexplainable, I’se gwine to do 
de ondoable, and I’se gwine to onscrew de onscrutable.” 
This problem is big because of the lack of one thing— 
Money. With a lot of money we can do a lot of good, and 
gentlemen, with the little money that this Association has 
had to operate on all these years it has done a lot of good. 
Let us look back a little, realize what this Association has 
had to work with and what it has accomplished:— 
This Association is now forty years old. was founded 
by a few representative nurserymen with the idea of 
bringing together in an annual convention the reputable 
nurserymen of the United States, to get acquainted with 
each other, relax from business, mix and mingle together, 
to exchange views and ideas, discuss methods of propaga¬ 
tion, cultivation and all questions of common interest, 
and incidentally, or possibly primarily, to exchange, buy 
and sell nursery stock; the founders of this Association 
had in mind the bringing into its membership all reput¬ 
able nurserymen of this country—a National Association 
of American nurserymen. They had in mind the greatest 
good to the greatest number. The dues were nominal, 
expenses small, their problems far less complicated than 
those we face today. Up to 1905 the dues were $2.00 
per year; they were then raised to $3.00 and in 1906 to 
$5.00; so going back ten years we find we have had an 
income of $5.00 per year for nine years and $3.00 for one 
year, from a membership as follows:— 
1905 
West Baden 
472 Members 
1906 
Dallas 
541 
U 
1907 
Detroit 
371 
u 
1908 
Milwaukee 
376 
u 
1909 
Rochester 
384 
u 
1910 
Denver 
356 
u 
1911 
St. Louis 
382 
u 
1912 
Boston 
363 
u 
1913 
Portland 
463 
u 
1914 
Cleveland 
410 
u 
We now have $6500 in our treasury, and since 
Feb- 
