THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
263 
ber of plants, it costs so much to set them out, so much to 
cultivate the land per year, so much to bud or graft them, 
and so much to dig and put them on the market. But 
that is not enough. The rental of the land, or the de¬ 
pletion of the soil, in case one owns his land; the losses 
incurred by climatic conditions, such as excessive rain 
or no rain, frosts, hail and snow, and many more such 
natural contingencies must not be left out of account. 
Then again the depreciation of tools, machinery and 
buildings must not he overlooked; interest on tin* invest¬ 
ment and a list of overhead charges all enter into cost of 
production. 
Neither is this all. Thirty years ago this catalogue of 
expenses would have been about all that would have had 
to he considered; not so now. Insect pests, save the old 
tent caterpillar, were unknown. Even a quarter of a cen¬ 
tury ago who had heard, or much less seen the San Jose 
scale, the Brown-tail, Gipsy, the Leopard Moth, or the 
White Pine Blister Rust? 1 had not; but now all of us 
are familiar with some if not all of them; and we know 
too that these things add to the cost of production hot 
they must not be regarded as unmitigated evils, any more 
than weeds should be. Weeds compel cultivation and 
hence growth; pests compel cleaning up of the nursery 
and its surroundings; they conduce to cleanliness. I 
venture the assertion that never in the history of the nur¬ 
sery business in this country, were there so many tidy, 
well kept nurseries, as there are to-day; and in a large 
measure, the pests are responsible for Ibis state of things. 
While all this, and even more is true, the fact remains, 
that these pests, so-called, have added very materially to 
the cost of production. 
All of these things must be taken into account in deter¬ 
mining costs, and when all have been taken into account, 
we can arrive at the cost of production only relatively at 
best. 
But that relative cost makes a basis at which to begin. 
In our schooldays, we wrestled with algebraic proposi¬ 
tions, with known and unknown quantities in the 
equation which were represented by such characters as 
X, Y and Z. Now we wrestle with problems, known as 
costs, and costs that are unknown. In the one case we 
could determine the value of the unknown by the known 
values, but not so with such unknown quantities as 
storms, draught, wind and hail. These unknown quan¬ 
tities must be determined not by algebraic process, but by 
liberal additions. A safe way is that of the Druggist, 
who adds to the cost price his two per cent. If we figure 
that a given plant cost (using the known values) $20.00 
per 1000 to produce it, I have regarded it a safe proposi¬ 
tion to multiply that by two. In some instances that 
would seem excessive; in others it would fall below the 
actual cost. On the whole I believe it is a safe rule to fol¬ 
low in determining costs. But we must not stop here, 
when we have considered this side of the equation, tor it 
is at this point, that, with many, the tug ot w r ar begins. 
Nurserymen are beset by dangers from without and 
foes from within their own camp. It is for the elimina¬ 
tion of some of these deterrent factors that I beg every 
one of you to give due consideration. The plunger is ;i 
party to lie avoided. The man who sells 10,000 \ iburnum 
plicatum at a profit, year after year, starts in to incrcasr 
that product by propagating 100,000. That is the man I 
would style a plunger, and the man who should be dis¬ 
suaded lrorn such folly. 1 simply use \ iburnum plicatum 
as an illustration. I lie market calls for about such a 
number of plants of a given species. The number in¬ 
creases from year lo year as the volume of nursery bus¬ 
iness increases; and every growing concern has a right 
lo increase its plantings; but it has no moral right to 
propagate any article 1 so much in excess of the legitimate 
demand, that it is compelled, in order to unload, to do so 
at any price, regardless of cost. 1 say we have no moral 
right to such a course. There may be no w ritten law for¬ 
bidding me to sell an article for any price I please; but 
there is a moral law that forbids my doing so. No man 
has a right deliberately to destroy tin 1 opportunities of 
livelihood and of gain for any other man. Such a course 
works hardship to the many, and ruin to a possible few. 
The course of the plunger leads from bad to worse. It is 
loading the dice in the game of business. It is to invite 
financial disaster upon the perpetrator and disaster upon 
others. 
The logical result of plunging in production is price- 
cutting at the selling end. The Grocer who begins his 
career by cutting prices below a reasonable percentage of 
profit, works no good to a community. He is tin 1 man w ho 
should he shunned. He disturbs values and throws 
legitimate business out of the normal. He may run along 
for a while and make a big bluster in his community, hut 
the day is sure to come w hen he, in a night, like the Arab 
of the desert, will fold his tent and get away. or. what 
may he worse, have his tout folded for him. by orders of 
the courts. 
The result is. legitimate business has suffered; tin* 
public has become bewitched by tin 1 bargain countin’ idea 
in trade, and no one has been benefitted. The legitimate 
child of plunging in production is price-cutting, that 
works no good to any and much harm to all. It may he 
urged that price cutting is sometimes indulged in by those 
w ho do little, if any. producing. That is true. Haw kers 
and dry goods houses cut under the nurseryman in sell¬ 
ing a few 7 articles such as Roses. California Privet and 
the like; hut they are in a class by themselves, and for 
this very nuisance the nurserymen are themselves re¬ 
sponsible. What nurseryman will lower the dignity of 
his business by considering for one moment, the prices at 
which these people, who have no investment in the bus¬ 
iness, but who sell stock they have been able to procure 
from some plunger or inconsiderate nurseryman? 
Plunging in production and its attendant evil, are evils 
which we should set ourselves to correct. I fancy I hear 
some one saying, “what shall be done when everybody 
has gone wild in production; when such a condition pre¬ 
vails again, as that which pertained the past season, as 
in the case of apple trees?” Probably no one will learn 
anything from his folly in the past, and the majority will 
cut and slash prices again, should occasion arise: and 
advertise far and wide. “Apples for five cents to the trade, 
and ten cents to the public, and if not ten cents, then 
anything.” 
This is what has happened w ithin six months, and it 
is what w ill probably happen until we nurserymen be¬ 
come sane and sensible business men. 1 nder such cir¬ 
cumstances, what shall we do? We should bo men and 
have some “esprit de corps’ for our cratt. We should 
