208 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
tablish a “system of co-operative buying and selling among mem¬ 
bers of this Association.” If such a thing can be done, and I do 
not doubt it, not only will it prove a great convenience to the 
buyer as well as the seller, but it will save a tremendous amount 
of stock from the brush pile every year. As has been stated on 
a number of occasions before when this question was under dis¬ 
cussion, hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of stock go into 
the brush pile each year because of the lack of co-operative 
plans for distribution. I believe this feature of the organiza¬ 
tion’s efforts alone would make it at least worth a trial, (c) 
Statistics of a more general nature telating to any of the many 
features of the business could, with propriety and profit, be as¬ 
sembled by and through this organization, making it in very 
truth an encyclopedia of information for the nurserymen, but as 
there are other phases of the work which the organization might, 
with profit to you, contemplate, I will leave it to your imagina¬ 
tion to suggest other valuable data under the head of “gathering 
statistics.” One has only to think just a little of the question to 
realize how necessary and how wide is this particular field. 
(3) Standardization. While the resolution provides for a 
rect standards than has ever been true before in the twenty-five 
years I have know them. Furthermore, as a result of that con¬ 
ference, this will prove the most profitable year we have exper¬ 
ienced in many. In all probability our volume of business has 
been greater in past years, but our volume in the past has been 
on the wrong basis. I do not want to leave the impression that 
this conference was called to fix prices or to do anything con¬ 
trary to well established rules of ethics and jurisprudence, not 
that; we simply met and talked over problems of advanced 
costs, of supplies, of stock, etc., and the necessity of closest co¬ 
operation, and every man left that conference and returned to 
his office to dictate a new price list for his salsmen. This thing 
worked in the Southwest and it will work in the United States. 
It does not take a man of real good sense to realize that to-day 
he must get more for his goods than he did in 1914-15, or in 1917 
for that matter, but there is a great big question in the minds 
of many men, and that question is, “I am forced in contemplating 
my own plans to consider what my competitor is going to do.” 
There is also a question in all our minds as to what is just and 
right in the premises, hence, if it were possible to work out an 
J. R. May hew, Waxahachie, Texas, 
President, American Association of Nurserymen. 
special committee on standardization, it would, after all, devolve 
upon the Secretary-Manager to devise ways and means to bring 
about this long neglected work of attempting to standardize the 
nursery business of America. I have heard men of good minds 
and business acumen say that while this thing was greatly to be 
desired, it was impossible to accomplish. With all due respect 
to my friends, I do not believe it. Furthermore, if we cannot 
some way work out plans that will bring about a more stable 
condition, I see little hope for the nursery business. Early in 
the season, I think it was February, I received a letter from one 
of my Texas friends asking me to endeavor to get together the 
nurserymen of Texas and Oklahoma for a conference on this 
very question. The request being in accord with my ambition 
nationally, I selected some fifteen nursery firms, doing perhaps 
90% of the business of the Southwest, and invited them to at¬ 
tend this conference. Every man invited, except one who was 
out of the state, attended and, as a result, there is to-day among 
the nurserymen of the Southwest the nearest approach to cor- 
equitable basis which would govern for the year, or for any num¬ 
ber of years, it would save many firms from serious loss or 
bankruptcy. Serious as is the question of low prices, however, 
and the lack of standards here, more serious, if possible, is the 
question of our utter lack of standards from an ethical point of 
view. If we could throw on the canvass before this Association 
at this hour the loss and unnecessary trouble that results from 
a lack of standards among us ethically, and each of us know that 
the things that are hinted at here are true, I think we would 
conclude that if we were able to do nothing more than to work 
out proper standards which should govern our dealings one with 
another, it would be worth the cost that we would put into this 
organization. The resolution before us provides that a com¬ 
mittee composed of representative men engaged in every line of 
nursery endeavor be appointed to work out a basis of standards 
which shall govern the nurserymen in their dealings one with 
the other. This provision of the resolution is so broad that 
wherever the question of standards enters into the matter the 
