THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
215 
that, as it is possible tliat your president may not be able to be 
here during the entire session. He has very definite convictions 
on this subject, and I think an opportunity should be given to 
you to hear Mr. Mayhew at this time. 
MR. J. R. MAYHEW: I have been just a little too busy dur¬ 
ing these sessions to give very much thought to the work of the 
Market Development Committee. But as I look over this list of 
sixteen names, if I had any doubts in the world in my mind, 
those doubts would be dispelled. Personally, as a subscriber to 
this fund, as one who believes in its efficacy, I am more than 
willing to contribute the amount that I am able to contribute to 
this splendid body of men and ask no questions. I think you 
might look the United States over and you would not find an 
abler, fairer body of men than those that have been gotten to¬ 
gether for your directors for this year, and because that is true, 
you are not going to make any mistake. I said in the initial 
meeting, or in the pre-meeting of this committee, that 1 
believed the time was ripe now to go ahead with this work. I 
believe that that is the committee’s plan, notwithstanding the 
fact that the world is being devastated by war, I think we must 
not lose sight of the fact that we must keep the home tires 
burning. The aim of this committee is to create better markets 
and bigger markets and more markets and I believe that any one 
of us can take on just a little more work. I think any of us can 
take on a few more orders and I hope to see the work progress 
from the beginning. I am not going to take any more of your 
time; I have spoken many times during this session. 1 believe 
most heartily in the work and, best of all, I believe most heartily 
in the men that are going to be responsible for the work. 
THE CHAIRMAN: When coming to the platform I referred 
to a man who had stated to me that he had come here partic¬ 
ularly on account of this movement and I think it is due you 
that you should hear from him. Mr. O. Joe Howard, of North 
Carolina. 
MR. HOWARD: I believe in this proposition. I have been work¬ 
ing at the publicity game n our Southern Association for some 
two or three years and we feel that we have accomplished some 
things down there. I want to relate something that happened 
down in my state the summer before last. We undertook to put 
on a landscape department and got a set of slides and a lantern 
and one of these machines made up here at Detroit and sent a 
landscape architect to lecture on landscape gardening with one 
of our best salesmen. 1 want to say this to show how 1 believe 
this movement can help the man who works through agents par¬ 
ticularly. These men went out doing this lecture work and had 
time the next day to take orders and in some places worked 
after the lecture to take orders. At one town, 1 remember, a rep¬ 
resentative of another nursery came into our office after the 
year’s trip was over and inquired of us when we were going to 
send out this lecturer again. Well, I thought he had his gall 
with him, but just that thing happened, he was reaping the 
benefit of our work, we were helping our competitor over there 
at Richmond. But I am just simply trying to show you that this 
publicity work that we did with our landscape garden department 
was helping the other fellow. That is my only plea. 
1 believe that this publicity work will do another think for the 
agency man. We all know that book agents and fruit tree 
agents are very high class men. They stand at the very top of 
the profession. I believe that by making this thing national and 
letting the public know that we nurserymen are on our jobs and 
are men worth while, that it will be easier for us agency men to 
get a higher class of representatives. You may not need that, 
but we do. I will be perfectly frank with you. There is not an 
agency man here that will not agree with that statement. We all 
have some good men, but 1 am sorry to say that nearly all nur¬ 
serymen know of some scalawags. We need this thing because 
it puts the thing on a higher plane. Above all things we need 
the spirit of cooperation among nurserymen that will be devel¬ 
oped by this cooperative movement. I believe it will wipe away 
a great many difficulties. We will stop knocking each other and 
boost our business and help everybody else along. 
THE CHAIRMAN: There is in the hall a man who I believe 
will raise his subscription ten times the amount he first sub¬ 
scribed if he felt that every man was going to put in the same 
proportion and I would call on Mr. W. H. Wyman. 
-MR. W. H. WYMAN: Mr. President and gentlemen of the As¬ 
sociation: I was not expecting to say anything on this subject. 
It is a big subject, it is a broad subject and I may not keep ver>’ 
close to the mark if I attempt to say what is in my mind. 
Because this is a broad proposition I believe in 
it if it is taken up in a broad way and only if it is taken up 
in a broad way. What we need to do is to create himger for our 
business, for allour goods, to create an appetite for them. All 
other businesses are doing that which creates an appetite for 
their wares. It is possible for us to do the same thing. We are 
told that by exjierts who are familiar with putting over tricks 
of this kind. It is only a question as to whether or not we are 
willing to enter into this arrangement co-operatively, in a large 
way, commensurate with our ability. It is possible for us, if we 
only think so, to raise a good sum of money. I am willing, as 
the president has said, though I have given him no authority 
for saying it, I am willing to subscribe a thousand dollars to this 
fund if we make this fund a hundred thousand dollars for the 
first years. (Applause.) And I believe it can be easily done if 
we go at it, if we want to do it, and I can show you how it can 
be done very easily if you are willing as a body to cooperate in 
this movement. It should not be done by two or three men, it 
should not be done by a few, every last ne of us in proportion 
to our business. Eveyr one of us will get benefitted in propor¬ 
tion to our business. Every one of us will get benefit from it It 
is not because I expect to benefit at your expense, nothing of the 
kind. We will all be benefitted if we launch a large movement 
that shall create for our wares a much larger demand. 
I do not believe that the time is ripe now to launch a move¬ 
ment of this kind. I think that we have got one thing before us 
that we must do, when that thing is done, then let it be in 
shape, let us get in shape to do the thing when the proiier time 
comes. I should like, if I might be allowed, I should like to get 
an expression from the gentlemn here as to how many of you 
are in sympathy with this movement. Without making a pledge 
of one cent, I should like to know how many men are in 
sympathy with a movement of this kind. I always like to know 
what the crowd is that I am talking to, where I stand, and may I 
ask the men who are in sympathy with this movement to raise 
their hand? 
THE CHAIRMAN: A standing vote is asked for. 
(There was a unanimous rising of the members present.) 
MR. WYMAN: That, IMr. Chairman, is very gratifying to me. 
Now I think all we need is to be shown how we can do this. I do 
not want to take time, we have a speaker here this morning who 
is going to show us many things, 1 think, but I am going to 
show you just one way by means of which we can in an equit¬ 
able manner raise $100,000. T/ast winter at our New England As- 
sociational meeting this matter was brought up and in that meet¬ 
ing it was concluded that the business of the nurserymen of this 
country amounted to twenty million dollars annually. We want¬ 
ed to raise $100,000 and we pledged ourselves there to raise our 
proportional part of $100,000 if this organization would take it 
upon itself to raise that amount. You can depend upon New 
England to raise its quota if you will raise the rest. How shall 
we do this? Now let us be honest with ourselves here, as we 
were honest with ourselves there. 
We passed around slips of paper in that meeting and asked 
every man, without signing his name, to jmt on the amount of 
business he did that year. We did that and I forget the amount 
that was shown in New England, but we could do that thing here 
now. At the rate that our business in New England footed up, 
we concluded that at least twenty million dollars was only a fair 
figure for the United States. Now sui>posing we should be will¬ 
ing to assess ourselves one half of one per cent for five years of 
total of our business, how easily we could raise $100,000 and none 
of us would feel it. We can take that out of our advertising and 
we would have this $100,000. I for one am willing to assess my¬ 
self, to unite with you in making a voluntary assessment of one 
half of one per cent. 
Now that would not be fair, T could hear some of you saying. 
Some of you gentlemen are doing a large business in a retail way 
and it may be that they are doing a million dollars’ worth of busi¬ 
ness and it would not be fair to assess them in that way, 
because their profits are not so large in the aggregate as some 
concerns doing less business who are having less overhead 
expense. I think that is true, and I would make a limit, that no 
concern should be assessed for more than a certain sum. I do 
not know how that could be worked out, I do not know just 
where to put that figure, but T would say, let us assess ourselves 
some amount, I do not care whether it is one half of one per cent, 
or one fifth of one per cent, or whatever per cent it is, which in 
the judgment of this body shall seem advisable. I^et us assess 
ourselves and then the burden will fit equally upon every mail’s 
shoulder and everybody will give in proportion to his capacity, 
his ability or his business capacity. 
Now, I believe something of this kind can be worked out. I am 
in favor of it, but I am not in favor of doing this thing this year. 
It will take some little time to get this machinery in motion. 
When we have whipped the Kaiser then we can go ahead and do 
this thing, but we will first whip the Kaiser. (Applause.) But 
