THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
17 
natural demand no one can deny. What the high water mark 
is or when it will be reached no one can say. We have three 
avenues for reaching the ultimate consumer; the small local 
dealer and grower, who has a call trade; the mail order 
man and the agency finn. Eliminating the first as a non 
important factor, the mail order men probably do twenty- 
five per cent of the remaining business and the agency firms 
seventy-five per cent. / 
Just how the cost of getting business by these two methods 
compare, would be hard to determine. With the present day 
tendency for elaborate and expensive catalogues and the 
appalling loss, via the waste-basket route, together with the 
cost of mailing, assembling prospects, newspaper and rural 
advertising, the cost of getting business for the mail order 
man is very considerable and his decided raise in prices the 
past year or two shows he has been traveling on a small 
margin. While the mail order business is a legitimate and 
good business, one is not prepared to believe it to be the 
ultimate solution of the sale and distribution of nursery 
stock. The short season they have for selling, the extreme 
difficulty in holding a permanent trade in line and the sharp 
nfiuence, periods of depression have upon the sale of goodsi 
by catalogue all militate against the mail order nurseryman 
becoming a predominating factor in the business. 
When it can be accomplished for reasonable cost, direct 
solicitation is the most satisfactory means of getting orders 
for nursery stock or any other kind of business. The nursery¬ 
man employing agents has the advantage of soliciting busi¬ 
ness about eleven months of the year. He can choose his 
territory and his men and can cover the ground more thor¬ 
oughly and with better results than would be possible by any 
other means. The reliable nurseryman with a good agency 
force has something tangible to start with each year. If he is 
giving his customers good stock and treats his men right, 
(which most of them do) his business is bound to grow. 
The cost of getting agents when times are good is con¬ 
siderably more than when help is plentiful, but of course, in 
good times good men will sell more than when times are dull. 
Judging one season with another, the average cost of getting 
agents and equipping them with good outfits should not 
exceed $5.00 per man and figuring that those who make good 
usually stay with the firm several seasons, the business they 
get in subsequent years reduces the first cost and contributes 
to the maintenance of the office. The cost of getting new 
business will vary a great deal in different localities and 
depends much upon the efficiency of the men in charge and 
upon the burden imposed in the way of salaries and general 
expenses. The commission one pays to salesmen is an 
important faetor, but fortunately among nurserymen there is 
more uniformity on this than there is on prices they sell for. 
The average nursery agent gets from twenty-five to thirty 
per cent, for his work. There is no other line of business of 
the magnitude and importance of the nursery business that 
pays less. 
What the nursery business needs is more unity of purpose 
and standardization. At present, there is all together too 
much discrepancy in prices, in fact, too much of many repre¬ 
hensible practices wholly demoralizing to the business. We 
all know what the trouble is and most of us know who the 
troublemakers are, but to purge the business of these unde¬ 
sirables is quite another matter. In brief, we have with us 
the mail order man selling cull stock, advertising it as being 
the best; the wholesaler who after shij^ping to the retailer 
sends out low priced circulars broadcast throughout the land; 
the agency finns who act as pirates pre^nng upon the good 
will of others with unreasonable commission offers; last but 
not least, the shark with his gang of five or six nearcrooks 
who is ever seeking new fields and who leaves behind him a 
naked trail of bitterness and wrath against nurseries in 
general. If the better element of the nursery business would 
unite and put up a solid front against such pernicious activi¬ 
ties a great deal could be accomplished and while not advo¬ 
cating anything as revolutionary as a trust scheme a deeided 
stand should be taken on the question of prices which after 
all is the most vital issue. Therefore, let us endeavor to 
enlighten our blind brethren, (who are as those lost in the 
forest), trying to do a profitable business at prices wholly 
prohibitive of such results. 
Wauwatosa, Wis. A. S. Hanson, 
Western Sales Manager, Hawks Nursery Co. 
AMERICAN FORESTRY CO. 
The Committee on Gardens of the Massachusetts Horti¬ 
cultural Society has just awarded a “special prize” and medal 
to the American Forestry Company of Boston for the excel¬ 
lence of their work in producing the famous little trees of their 
“Little Tree Farms.” There seems a singular fitness of 
things in the fact that this unexpected honor came to Mr. 
Borst from a “Committee on Gardens” for the intensive 
cultivation of the acres and acres of rectangular beds at Little 
Tree Farms has always led to the comparison from visitors 
and passers-by, “How like an enormous garden!” The 
Committee on Gardens, however, saw more elearly than this: 
not like a great garden, but actually a great garden, of little 
trees, they pronpunced it to be. And it was in recognition of 
the scientific accuracy, delicate skill, and technical knowledge 
of the principles of agriculture, forestry, and gardening, that 
they have bestowed their special prize. The operations of 
seeding, transplanting, scientific weeding and prevention of 
weeds, spraying, pruning, identification of seeds, extracting, 
cleaning and care of seeds, with all the other operations in 
practice at the farms, are not only done on a very large scale, 
but they are done with extreme accuracy, and with the latest 
developments in method and implement; and in both these 
latter items Mr. Borst has been the originator of much of the 
best that he uses. The bestowal of the medal is merited 
praise for much pioneer labor, but its true significance, as a 
recognition of a new and valuable type of gardening, makes it 
of far greater importance to the nursery and forestry world 
than its merely personal aspect indicates. It is a welcome 
given to a valuable “Beginning in American Forestry,” as 
well as a compliment to Mr. Borst and his able growers 
SOUTHWESTERN HORTICULTURIST 
A new monthly Horticultural paper has been bom at Fort 
Worth, Texas, named as above. Our country is so big and 
the products so various that we welcome it and wish it a long 
and prosperous life. 
