THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN. 
i2r 
VIRGINIA LA W SCORED. 
K. Morton, of Richmond, State Vice-President of the American 
Association , Actively at Work In His Own State- 
Example for Others. 
State Vice-President K. Morton of the American Asso¬ 
ciation of Nurserymen, manager of the Virginia branch at 
Richmond of the Knoxville Nursery Co., writes as follows 
to the Richmond Times-Dispatch: 
Sir.—Your correspondent in Sunday’s Times-Dispatch, from Morris- 
ville, Va., gives us some interesting history concerning fruit growing 
and some facts as to its great profit, all of which is very true, for there is 
nothing which gives a man more real happiness and greater profit than 
fruit growing. But it is not to enlarge on this part of his most inter¬ 
esting letter, but to thank him for being, as far as I know, the first man 
to attack in print, that iniquitous, and abominable so-called “law” 
passed by the last session of Legislature, and known as chapter 207 in 
acts of Assembly. He strikes the keynote when 
he says that “there is not such an unjust and 
unfair law to be found on the statute books of 
any other State in the Union.” 
SHOULD GET RID OF IT. 
And the people of Fauquier county, who 
express themselves so clearly against this law 
should act and help to get rid of it, as we should 
easily be able to do in November; get after your 
legislators and let them know that you are watch¬ 
ing them, for this law was passed without any 
attention having been given it save by those 
interested in its passage, and who they were 
nobody can find out. For the law, as passed, 
is positively and entirely different from a law 
that was framed and endorsed by the Horticul¬ 
tural Society of Virginia at its last annual meet¬ 
ing. The wool was pulled over the eyes of the 
too confiding nurserymen who had endorsed an 
entirely different law, and this final monstrosity 
railroaded through and sprung like a trap upon 
nurserymen, who are a retiring, modest, pains¬ 
taking, law-abiding people, doing more good 
than all the politicians that ever existed from the 
beginning of the world up to the present day, 
who have stood aside and allowed laws to be 
made controlling their business, without a pro¬ 
test, laws which treat nurserymen as if they were felons, when, in fact, 
they are the most lawabiding citizens. 
The nursery business occupies a peculiar position in commerce. While 
we conduct our business pretty much along the lines of other business, 
we have enormous expenses and cannot take our goods down from 
shelves and show them as merchants do. Yet no nurseryman would 
let his stock become infested with San Jose scale or other pests, for if he 
did he could not do business either in his own State or outside. 
Now, the State of Virginia wants luxuries, and can afford to pay for 
them, and if it wants entomologists, let us have them, but do not make 
laws giving them the power of a Czar and allow them to dictate and 
rough-ride over law-abiding citizens. 
MAKE ENTOMOLOGISTS SUBORDINATE. 
Make them subordinates to good and proper responsible authority. 
The United States Government has its entomological department under 
control of the Secretary of Agriculture; we have a most capable Agri¬ 
cultural Department, under control of a commissioner, who has made 
his department an example and a byword of excellence throughout the 
United States, who as a native Virginian takes pride in his State and its 
welfare and does all he can to bring good citizens and capital into our 
State. Put this department of nursery and orchard inspection under 
charge of his department; make the entomologists subordinate to him; 
give him funds to operate this department; get rid of experimental 
James McHutchison. 
stations located in the wilds of the mountains, where experiments have 
to be made all the time, and where no criterion can be obtained; utilize 
our State farm in this direction and better still accept the proposition 
of nurserymen who are willing to furnish trees in various sections of 
the State, gratis, for experimental orchards, to responsible parties who 
will plant and care for them and report on same. Why the $20 was 
assessed against nurserymen in Virginia, I do not know. That was 
another attack on a business already full of expenses and burdened to 
its utmost, as the bill also carries an appropriation of $6,000 annually 
to pay for inspecting and cleaning orchards. Nurserymen are willing 
to pay so much per diem to have their nurseries inspected, if this is nec¬ 
essary, though, as I have before said, they know better how to keep 
their stock clean than they can be told. 
ORCHARDS NEED THE POLICING. 
It is not the nurserymen who need or require this “policing,” as it 
was called by one who favored the bill, but the orchards all over the 
State should be carefully inspected and pests of all kinds treated and 
obliterated, for no matter how nice and how clean, how pure and how 
fine, the trees a nurseryman may send you, these young trees planted 
near an old infested orchard will soon themselves become infested. 
Therefore, it is necessary that the orchardist 
inform himself how to fight “ bugs” and “hum¬ 
bugs,” too, and to keep his trees clean. If the 
planter gives the same attention to spraying and 
caring for his orchard that a nurseryman gives 
to his stock, there will be no pests to bother 
any of us. In this way, together, we will get 
rid of all known pests and we can then have time 
to watch for new discoveries and keep them 
away. 
Now, while this $20 assessment is unreasona¬ 
ble, if you wake up like all of us have to do 
now and teach your representative how to vote, 
there will only be the $20 you will have to pay 
out this year, and if this wakes you up and gets 
you in the line of progress that exists outside of 
Virginia in the nursery world, it will be money 
well spent, for “ the American Association of 
Nurserymen,” the largest commercial organiza¬ 
tion in the United States, wants you to come 
out of your shell and join with it in forwarding 
our mutual interests. Not one of those sixty 
odd nurseries in Virginia was represented at 
Detroit last June, while the State of Tennessee 
had ten or twelve representatives. Turn out 
another year and meet the Association at At¬ 
lanta, Ga., and learn something about the cost 
of a tree. For it is not the $20 license that will hurt your business 
half so much as your selling below cost of production. 
©bttuar\> 
Clark R. Powell, Sterling, Ill.., died on October 17th. He was born 
in Saratoga county, N. Y., Sept 12, 1826. He went to Illinois in 1849 
and in 1850 engaged in the nursery business. At the time of his death 
he owned 80 acres. 
Edward L. Hallo well, treasurer of the Shady Hill Nursery Co., Bos¬ 
ton, died September 19th, aged 42. 
Benjamin N. Jerome, New London, Conn., died recently in New 
York city, aged 68 years. He succeeded to the nursery business estab¬ 
lished by his father twenty years ago. 
Charles Dawson, son of Jackson Dawson, of Arnold Arboretum, died 
recently. He had been operating a nursery for rare hardy trees and 
^William T. Terrell, proprietor of the Bloomfield Nursery, Bloom¬ 
field, I nd., died recently aged 51 years. . , 
Dr. Joseph Stayman, originator of the Stayman Apple and btavman 
Strawberry, died at Leavenworth, Kan., October 6, aged 86 years. 
Z. K. Jewett, of Sparta, Wis., died at Rochester, Minn., September 
1 1th. He was born at Aurora, Ohio. A widow, a son and two daugh¬ 
ters survive. 
