400 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
tion of this fact, evidenced on the part of our city fathers, 
school trustees, and social workers in the provision of parks 
and pIay-p:rounds. That board of control that fails to make 
adequate provision along this line is criminally negligent of 
the trust imposed upon it, as negligent as though heat during 
the winter months was inadequate, or ice and ventilation in 
the summer months. 
The most deplorable sight, to my mind, is the crowded 
tenements of our cities where, hedged in from all the beauties 
of Nature, the child life is dwarfed and the criminal is bred. 
In my home town there is a beautiful little spot, only four 
hundred feet square, bequeathed to our poeple by two great 
men, both of whom have gone to their reward. One of them 
gave the land and planted thereon shade and ornamental 
trees. The other erected and endowed a public library. I 
pass by this place many times a week, and I thank God for 
these lives that have made it possible through this service for 
coming generations to acquire knowledge, for the provision 
of a place where even the poorest is welcome. Who can 
estimate the influence for good emanating from such an 
institution ? 
In our cities the apartment houses adjacent to the public 
parks are the most desirable resident properties, bringing 
returns many times greater than those otherwise situated. 
Yfliile visiting one of my friends in New York City, a few 
years ago, looking out from his window on a beautiful green 
sward with a few magnificent shade trees dotted here and 
there, a beauty spot where the prevalence was paved streets 
and brick houses, I remarked upon its beauty. “Yes,” said 
my friend, “I laid in wait for these premises for months and 
pay a premium of $15.00 per month for these rooms because 
they face this park.” As I feasted my soul on this little spot 
of green with hundreds of children romping beneath the shade 
in their enjoyment, I soliloquized thus: “Some hard working 
nurseryman grew those beautiful trees, roses, evergreens, and 
therein made it possible for all this beauty and pleasure. I 
wonder who he was, or where he is if he still lives ? I wish I 
knew that I might take him by the hand and tell him how 
much he has contributed to the world in this service.” Only 
a tree, a rose, an evergreen, or a shrub bearing beautiful 
flowers. It takes only a few years to propagate and grow 
ready for planting. It is such a little thing But this 
service, with God’s sunshine and rain, stands year after year 
a monument to the nurseryman, growing more beautiful 
and more serviceable to mankind with age. 
You know it is the commonest things that are of most 
value after all. Out in my state we occasionally strike an oil 
flow, and the news of the rich strike is heralded in glaring 
headlines through all the papers. A thousand wells of pure, 
life-saving water are passed by unnoticed, and still the service 
of water to a thirsty world is greater than all the oil, coal, 
iron, gold and silver combined. We breathe the pure air of a 
benignant Providence without a grateful thought, and worry 
our lives away after dollars that cannot provide one breath of 
pure air, and that ofttimes take the wings of the morning and 
fly to the uttennost parts of the earth. The service you 
render is a common sendee, but it is a beautiful service, 
nevertheless. 
Your vService in the Substantial Things of Life 
If our minds turn to the more substantial things of life 
and we judge our vocation counted in dollars and cents, we 
are giving the world wealth great beyond the dream of man. 
In considering the question from this point of view it is never 
safe to deal in generalities, for when you talk of dollars, men 
want to be showm. While thinking on this phase of the 
question, my eye caught two statements of fact, both happen¬ 
ing to be from the good old state of Virginia. Wherever we 
develop the facts, however, the results are the same. “On 
thirty-two apple trees, which arc about sixty years old and 
occupying just one acre, the crop of 1909 sold for an even 
thousand dollars. Its yield in some past years has brought a 
return of fifteen hundred dollars. The land in the neighbor¬ 
hood of this orchard is valued at from $20.00 to $40.00 per 
acre.” If we figure the average for this sixty-year “young” 
orchard, every tree has contributed one thousand dollars to 
the wealth of the world. The planter who paid some of you 
nurserymen 25c per tree did not make a bad trade, did he? 
Again, a Virginian writing on the subject says, “When I 
came into possession of my property it sold for $7,500.00 and 
was not readily salable at that figure. Through planting 
orchards I have been able to sell off land in this tract to the 
amount of $25,000.00 and retain a property worth two or 
three times its original value.” You nurserymen know how 
small is the investment to set an acre or a hundred acres, 
hence I say in no other line of merchandising is the buyer 
getting so nearly value received, with measure heaped up, 
pressed down, and running over. 
Today the mind of the southern nurseryman is engaged as 
never before in Pecan propagation, both nursery grown and 
through the process of top budding or grafting native trees. 
Over the entire South there are thousands of native Pecan 
and Hickory that are practically worthless. The process of 
top working converts a worthless native tree into a tree the 
value of which coming generations will compute, I would not 
attempt it, giving to the world great wealth and food. How 
can you even approximate the worth of such service. We 
have a man out in my state who is giving all his splendid 
mind and energies to the propagation of Pecans, and through 
love of his subject he is revolutionizing methods of Pecan 
culture. He is called by some a Pecan crank, but by those 
who know him best a Pecan enthusiast, and he is making 
good. If he lives long enough he will convert every native 
Pecan and Hickory in my state into a tree of great worth and 
wealth. This man will never acquire great wealth for himself 
because he has no secrets and he is working for the world at 
large, but the question I would have you consider is, what is 
his worth? To my mind he is worth a hundred—yea, a 
hundred thousand millionaires, who contribute nothing to the 
economy of the world’s progress. 
Some way, some how, some where, in that day when we 
come at last to give an account of our stewardship, when the 
records shall have been opened, I shall not be afraid to take 
my place along with the balance of you who have been busy 
making the world more beautiful. To the credit of one will 
be fruit trees by the million, giving out their wealth of food 
from generation to generation. What is the worth of such a 
