THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
403 
The National Nurseryman 
Established 1893 by C. L. YATES. Incorporated 1902 
Published monthly by 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN PUBLISHING CO., Inc. 
218 Livingston Building, Rochester, N. Y. 
Editor .ERNEST HEMMING, Flourtown, Pa. 
The leading trade journal issi M for Growers and Dealers in 
Nursery Stocks of all kinds. It circulates throughout the 
United States, Canada and Europe. 
Official Journal of American Association of Nurserymen 
AWARDED THE GRAND PRIZE AT PARIS EXPOSITION, 1900 
SUBSCRIPTION RATES 
One Year in Advance.$1.00 
Six Months .75 
Foreign Subscriptions, in advance.$1.50 
Six Months .$1.00 
Advertising' rates will be sent upon application. Advertisements 
should reach this office by the 20th of the month previous to the date 
of issue. 
Payment in advance required for foreign advertisements. Drafts 
on New York or postal orders, instead of checks, are requested by the 
Business Manager, Rochester, N. Y. 
Correspondence from all points and articles of interest to nursery¬ 
men and horticulturists are cordially solicited. 
Photographs and news notes of interest to nurserymen should be 
addressed, Editor, Plourtown, Pa., and should be mailed to arrive not 
later than the 25th of the month. 
Entered in the Post Office at Rochester, N. Y ., as second-class matter. 
Rochester, N. Y., November, 1915. 
A study of the retail nursery business 
GET reveals one very important fact and that 
TOGETHER is the buyer and seller are not very close 
together. 
The seller has Ins stock in trade consisting of the most 
useful and beautiful things on earth, namely, fruit trees 
and flowering plants. 
The buyer has an ill defined desire for them, without 
exact knowledge of what he wants or how to get it. 
It is true the nurserymen with their catalogues, such 
journals as the Garden Magazine, Country Life and 
others, are doing valiant work in trying to bridge over 
the gap and bring them closer together, but it is still 
very wide, and the nurseryman that strives hardest to 
demonstrate the value of his goods to the public, is the 
greatest benefactor. 
We hear much railing against department store nur- 
^ery stock, cut price sales, government free distribu¬ 
tion and all those schemes which tend to lower prices and 
cheapen our goods, but there is a thought that persis¬ 
tently crops up. Perhaps these evil things will event¬ 
ually work good. 
We can hardly expect enormously increased sales at 
higher prices, so the future will either improve along the 
lines of restricted sales at higher prices or increased 
sales at lower prices. 
Taking other trades as a guide and keeping in mind 
that nursery products cannot be cornered and that there 
are greater possibilities with Mr. Common People than 
with Mr. Plutocrat, it would seem that increased sales, at 
lower prices, would be the line of future development. 
The first requirements of a sale is to gain attention and 
arouse interest. The man who plants government seeds, 
buys his nursery stock at a.department store, or his peach 
trees below cost is hardly likely to be the customer of a 
nurseryman, hut just as soon as he gets interested in 
growing things he becomes a very potential one. Few 
ot us are satisfied with anything less than the best when 
it comes to fruits, flowers and trees, and we get them, if 
c i rc \ unstances perm it. 
Market swamping is always a very temporary condi¬ 
tion. Every nurseryman knows that localities that have 
planted most are easier to sell to than those where little 
or no planting has been done. They may be more dis¬ 
criminating but there is always a market. This shows 
the most essential thing to develop a market is to get 
people interested in growing things. Personally, the 
writer in contact with the retail buyer has never found 
real competition in free seeds from the Government or 
plants given by the neighbors, and very trifling from the 
department stores, but has often found profound ignor¬ 
ance about growing plants and wrong impression as to 
their cost. Many people do not fix up their grounds be¬ 
cause they imagine it would cost more than it really 
would. 
The main point to keep in mind is anything that will 
arouse interest in planting will ultimately benefit the 
nursery business, whether it be a magazine article, a pic¬ 
ture or a few cheap plants from the 10 cent store to get 
the planter started. 
The final result will be in the hands of the nursery¬ 
man, and he must make a profit as well as give his cus¬ 
tomer his money’s worth. 
Wars are not desirable affairs, yet out 
DEVELOP of the terrible amount of suffering and 
OUR OWN waste they entail there is an occasional 
RESOURCES moiety of good. We notice by the daily 
commerce reports Russia is investi¬ 
gating her own deposits of phosphorite with 
which to manufacture fertilizer. There is noth¬ 
ing quite equal to suffering and hardship 
to develop the resources of either man or country. We 
all seem to be working under the same law that requires 
us to pay dearly for everything we get, yet how true it 
is we could get many things if we only had discernment 
enough to take them. Our fruit stock, azaleas, rhododen¬ 
drons, bulbs, roses, yes and many of our own indigenous 
plants such as kalmia. and seeds come to us along the 
line of least resistance, from Europe. 
It takes a war to shut off the source of supply before 
we begin in earnest to produce them ourselves. 
The American Association of Nur- 
THE NATIONAL serymen is the one means by which 
ASSOCIATION the nursery interests can be pro¬ 
tected. It is the one mouthpiece 
capable of speaking with a voice that will insure atten¬ 
tion. It is not a clique or an association representing 
the interests of the few. it is the National Association. 
Every nurseryman in the land should he a member and 
so have a voice in its management. The few dollars 
dues he really owes the Association anyhow, as his share 
in fighting unjust legislation, transportation charges and 
the hundred and one ways in which the Association 
through its committees is looking after the interests of 
the nursery business. 
On a separate page we publish a circular letter from 
Secretary of the Association, also the contract under 
