The National Nurseryman. 
FOR GROWERS AND DEALERS IN NURSERY STOCK. 
Copyright, 1897, by the National Nurseryman Publishing Co. 
VoL. V. ROCHESTER, N. Y., AUGUST, 1897. No. 7. 
THE NEW TARIFF. 
Text of Nursery Schedule—Senator Vest’s 
Suspicion of a “Canadian Cherry Tree”— 
Opinion as to the New Rates. 
The nursery schedule of the new tariff passed through vari¬ 
ous changes during the discussion in house, senate and confer¬ 
ence. As finally arranged, it reads as follows: 
Stocks, cuttings or seedlings of Myrobolan plum, Mahaleb or Mazzard 
cherry, three years old or less, fifty cents per thousand plants and 
fifteen per centum ad valorem; stocks, cuttings or seedlings of pear, 
apple, quince and the Saint Julien plum, three years old or less, and 
evergreen seedlings, one dollar per thousand plants and fifteen per 
centum ad valorem; rose plants, budded, grafted, or grown on their 
own roots, two and one-half cents each; stocks, cuttings and seedlings 
of all fruit and ornamental trees, deciduous and evergreen, shrubs and 
vines, Manetti, Multiflora, and Briar rose, and all trees, shrubs, plants 
and vines, commonly known as nursery or greenhouse stock, not 
specially provided for in this act, twenty-five per centum ad valorem. 
Orchids, palms, dracaenas, crotons and azaleas, tulips, hyacinths, 
narcissi, jonquils, lilies, lilies of the valley, and all other bulbs, bulb¬ 
ous roots, or conns, which are cultivated for their flowers, and natural 
flowers of all kinds, preserved or fresh, suitable for decorative purposes, 
twenty-five per centum ad valorem. 
SENATOR VEST’S SUSPICION. 
During the discussion of the tariff in the senate, Mr. Vest 
of Missouri, said: “I would lit:e to know why stocks of the 
Mahaleb or Mazzard cherry, three years old or less are put 
in with a specific tax upon them. I never heard of that 
cherry before, and I do not know what it is.” 
Mr. Allison of Iowa—“ We are told that it is a very fine 
variety of cherry; that they are imported by the thousand, 
and that the duty ought to be a specific value, with a view—” 
Mr. Vest—“ To keep it out ? ” 
Mr. Allison—“ No; with a view to collect a real duty rather 
than a nominal duty. So we have provided for a compound 
duty here instead of a wholly ad valorem or wholly specific 
duty.” 
Mr. Vest—“ I should like to ask whether this rate of duty 
was not suggested on this specific article by some nurseryman 
who did not want this Canadian cherry tree to come in here 
and compete with the cherry trees that he is selling. It never 
has appeared in any tariff bill before.” 
Mr. Allison—“ I have no doubt it was suggested by nursery¬ 
men and others. We have suggestions coming all the time 
from people who are familiar with the subjects, and nursery¬ 
men are familiar with this subject.” 
Mr. White of California—” There is one word in this para¬ 
graph that is new to me. I am not very well versed in such 
matters. What is meant by ‘ Manetti ’ in this connection ? ” 
Mr. Allison—” Manetti vine ? ” 
Mr. White—“After vines, ‘Manetti.’ Then follows “Multi¬ 
flora.” 
Mr. Allison—“ I suppose it is an Italian plant. I do not 
know what it is. I will say to my friend from Missouri I 
think there is no trouble about this rate. The probability is 
that on some of these low-priced seedlings the ad valorem, if 
properly collected, will be more than 30 per cent, and on 
many of them it will be less. Therefore, we make a compound 
duty so as to equalize matters between the high-priced and the 
lower-priced article.” 
Mr. Platt, of Connecticut—“ I think I can answer the 
inquiry of the senator from California. As I understand, it 
is the wild-rose stock, imported for the purpose of grafting 
old ones upon.” 
UNDER THE WILSON BILL. 
Mr. Vest—“Under the Wilson bill as it came from the 
House there was as a duty upon ‘ plants, trees, shrubs and 
vines of all kinds commonly known as nursery stock, not 
specially provided for in this act,’ 20 per cent ad valorem. I 
think it was upon my motion in 1894 that all nursery stock 
was stricken out of the dutiable list and put in the free list as 
paragraph 587. I have always, as a democrat and follower of 
Mr. Jefferson, boasted of his care for agriculture and his zeal 
in sending to this country European plants of every descrip¬ 
tion that might help the people of the United States, both in 
articles of necessity and even of decoration. Here the whole 
system is reversed, A lot of nurserymen, to speak plainly, 
have gone before the controlling influence of the financial 
committee and shut out by enormous taxation superior trees, 
shrubs and flowers that come from Canada and from abroad. 
They have absolutely now, for the first time (and I have been 
somewhat familiar with tariff bills in the last twelve or eighteen 
years), singled out specifically competing products like this 
cherry, and they have had such a duty put upon it as they 
know will exclude it from competition with them ; and the 
people of this country are to be made to use the cherries and 
plant the cherry trees that these gentlemen have on hand and 
in the market. If that is not protection run mad, I do not 
know what a financial and economic lunatic asylum is. They 
have absolutely selected a particular cherry tree and put an enor¬ 
mous duty upon it. If that is not class legislation, I should 
like to have some gentleman on the other side tell me what it is. 
“ I do not know what this cherry is. I have been under the 
impression, from observation and experience, that the finest 
cherries in the world are raised in the United States. I have 
never tasted any such cherries elsewhere It is said that they 
have cherries equal to them in France, but I have never seen 
them. The cherry of Washington and Oregon is the finest 
fruit, in my opinion, that was ever put in the mouth of mortal 
man. After eating them, which you can do in any quantity 
without any injury to your health, I have always thought if it 
had been a cherry in the Garden of Eden, instead of an ap¬ 
ple, I would have gone very far toward excusing Adam for 
taking a bite. But it seems these gentlemen have discovered 
that there is a cherry in Canada which must be kept out of 
this country, and instead of having these improved fruit trees 
cultivated in the United States, in the Middle and Northern 
