216 
THE NATIONAL NUESERYMAN 
let us now get in shape to do the next thing, for it may be that 
the Kaiser will be whipped before some of us think he is going 
to be whipped and we want to be ready for this other proposition. 
That is a thing it seems to me, that we ought to do. I do not 
believe in this voluntary subscription, only as we voluntarily vote 
to subscribe a certain per cent. I think in that way we can get 
it equitably adjusted. I leave this for your consideration. 1 
believe it is the most feasible way, it is the most equitable and it 
is the easiest way to get it, and I have authority from the New 
Bngland Nurserymen’s Association to say that when you get up 
to the $100,000 mark, we will do our part. (Applause.) 
THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Wyman has shown us very clearly 
where his heart is, it is right with this movement and you have 
also learned that he is one of the sixteen directors that have 
been selected to do the right thing in connection with this move¬ 
ment. He has told you that this is the best way out of it. I think 
everybody probably feels there is much in what he says. There 
is a question in the minds of some whether it is the best way to 
enter it and get it started, because there are some things we can¬ 
not do until we get the first great thing off our hands, he is right 
when he says we must whip the .Kaiser first. In the same way 
we must be prepared to pull off this job. We must whip tliis 
subject into shape and it is going to take some time to do it and 
this committee is on the job. May I call on Mr. Harrison, who 
has given a good round subscription and I believe he is prepared 
to do more. 
MR. ORI.ANDO HARRISON: I was asked this morning why 
our firm subscribed $500 a year for five years. I can answer in a 
moment. I authorized that myself as a matter of investment. I 
did so from experience. The past twenty-five years we have 
spent a quarter of a million dollars in advertising and I thought 
if we could make cooperative advertising go, I believe we could 
save money, so that was just simply as a matter of economy, not 
as a matter of expenditure, but as a matter of economy, getting 
together. I believe if we can get together, spend this money to¬ 
gether, we can make our money go further. One of the greatest 
cries is today, “Our money won’t reach.’’ But let us get together, 
give it to these 16 heads, let them use their best judgment and 
see if we cannot make it reach. I believe this is a good thing 
now. Mr. Wyman does not know whether he wants to start it 
at once, or whether he wants to wait 12 months or 5 years, that 
is up to the committee, but we are going to depend upon the com¬ 
mittee. I believe the American Association of Nurserymen 
should take some action and should take action today. The 
trouble is, we have postponed until we have got to a point when 
we are driven to do something. I believe that a great many nur¬ 
serymen have not made any money for five years. Is it not time 
to get at it, do something, get together and try to earn a few 
dollars for ourselves? Somebody spoke about licking the Kaiser. 
Yes, that is the first aim, but, gentlemen, we have got to have 
something to lick the Kaiser with. Het us get together, unite, 
determine on some plan of making some money and help lick the 
Kaiser and at the same time save our families. (Applause.) 
THE CHAIRMAN: There is a former president of this associ¬ 
ation from whom I know we will all be glad to hear. 
]\IR. JOHN WATSON: I feel a great responsibility in saying 
just a few words to you gentlemen, because the prosperity of 
the nursery trade in America and very largely the prosperity of 
America itself, rests in your hands and is determined by the 
decisions thait you make on this and other questions. I feel 
further responsibility because I am in a peculiar position. I 
believe heartly in this thing, I think it is the finest thing that the 
nurserymen of America have ever attempted. I believe in it 
absolutely and yet my judgment may not be good and yet my 
bread and butter absolutely depends on it. Now 
there is not a dollar of profit that can come to me from the 
success of this undertaking that does not have to come first in 
your hands. I am a wholesaler, my trade comes from many of 
you gentlemen who are here, I am talking to my customers. 
There is not a dollar in the nursery business that does not repre¬ 
sent dollars that you have already made and then through you 
may go further into my hands. The firm I have the honor to repre¬ 
sent have subscribed $250, I wish it were a thousand dollars. 
That $250 subscription is $250 more than the Princeton Nursery 
Company has ever made in the nursery trade. We are young, we 
are starting, this is one of the big things that is going to help 
us get along. I have heard several suggestions made by previous 
speakers. One is that we should have an assessment falling 
equally on all. Yes, that is true, that would be the equitable way 
and that would be the fair way and that I think is the way in 
which this thing will finally become operative. First, we know 
there is no ability to levy a tax, or that there is no power to 
collect taxes, but I believe that the nurserymen of the United 
States, the nurserymen of this association are going to be big 
and broad enough to realize that their subscriptions to this 
fund should be in proportion to the business that they do. and I 
believe that that matter can very safely be left to the board of 
directors and to the nurserymen themselves to adjust. Of course 
I shall not mention the character who is called forth on us by the 
previous speakers, he is not mentioned in polite society these 
days, but when we say this is not the time to do this and that we 
must put it off until the time that this character is disposed of, it 
is a mistake. 
Now, gentlemen, there is not money enough, or brains enough, 
or anything to be done within six months or within a year that 
can affect our sales. In the first place, if a merchandizing 
expert is called in to prescribe for your business, he wants to 
know what your stock is, he wants to know what your customers 
are, what territory you cover, the condition of your bank book. 
Now, when your 16 directors get, together to consider this 
question and when they have, as they should have, the advice of 
merchandizing experts, who have their advice to sell, remember 
that they are going to consider not the business of one firm, but 
they must consider the business of, we hope, 500 to 800 firms 
scattered all over the United States and it is going to be a big 
problem to figure out a campaign which is going to cover this 
whole country and fall equitably on all of you. It can be done, 
but it is a long,' hard study, it is going to take, in my opinion, 
fully a year to get our money raised and get a campaign mapped 
out. We must not expect immediate returns on this. The effect 
is going to be cumulative. It may be two, three, four, five years 
before we get returns but I honestly believe that there is not 
another way in which nurserymen could spend $50,000 or $100,000 
that would bring them better or finer results than this will. 
You are going to do that, gentlemen, you are going to raise 
that sum of money, you are going to cooperate. We have made 
the mistake in the past years of putting the most wonderful 
energy into competing with each other for the same orders, in 
competing on a price basis for the same business, but we have 
not done anything in a big co-operative way to develop a demand. 
That is what this Market Development should do. I want to see 
that $50,000 raised right in this meeting. Now is the accepted 
time. 
THE CHAIRMAN; Mr. Watson has said the word, now is the 
accepted time. Gentlemen, the opportunity will be offered for 
any one to speak who has an appropriation to> make, who has a 
subscription to offer, but before throwing the meeting open for 
that kind of speeches, I am going to call on Mr. Cashman, who 
will introduce that part of the subject. 
MR. M. R. CASHMAN; Gentlemen, I did not know that I was 
going to talk on this matter until just prior to this meeting, but I 
think in justice to my firm and any other nursery firm engaged 
in the retail end of this business that some discussion should be 
made to endeavor to find out, if possible where we are going to 
benefit from it, where we are going to benefit by a publicity 
campaign. I have been making a study insofar as my capacity 
will permit me, to enlarge my field of observations, to put into it 
a more concerted, effective action that would result of course in 
more business. I have studied the problem from various angles 
and I have arrived at several conclusions that I think have been 
of great value to my concern and has resulted in successful 
results from the efforts that they have made. First, to build up 
the quality and the character of my representatives and with them 
to make a concerted, united action for business. There never 
has been in the history of this world a greater illustration made 
of one concerted and united action than there has been made during 
the past four years and which has cost the civilized world 
millions of lives in blood. Concerted action and united cooper¬ 
ation have made it possible for a very small portion of this earth 
to almost submerge the entire world. Just think of it. There is 
not a man in this room that before this war thought it would be 
possible for three little nations to combat so successfully and so 
disastrously the entire wealth and man ix)wer of the earth. But 
what is it? Is it a superiority of brains? Is it a super- 
ioritf of government? Oh, no; it has been demonstrated clearly 
to you and me, that concerted action and cooperation have con¬ 
tinued this war to the present time, until we are beginning to 
tremble for our future. 
Now, then, we are building for concerted action ourselves and 
we are going to do and accomplish the thing that should have been 
done under concerted action and could have been done in a short 
er time. Here we are, a body of nurserymen scattered over the 
length and breadth of this land, each one of us in our own way 
seeking out our methods, putting them into practice, getting busi¬ 
ness to support our families and to pay our debts, and up until 
last year there has never been, so far as I know, any spirit of co¬ 
operation or any spirit of concerted action coming from this 
