354 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
INCREASED EXPRESS RATES 
General increases in express rates ^^ere announced 
November 20th by Director General McAdoo, of the Rail¬ 
road Administration. 
East of the Mississippi and north of the Ohio and Po¬ 
tomac Rivers, the ncNV rales on merchandise will he about 
16 and 17 cents ])er 100 ])ounds more than at present. 
The increase on food rates will be about 76 per cent, as 
much. 
For the remainder of the country, the merchandise 
rate will he increased about 10 to 12 cents per 100 
pounds over the present scale, and the increase in food 
rates will he proportionately 76 per cent. The increase, 
it was announced, is due to increases in wages. 
The new order, effective January 1, will raise about 
Jl'24,000,000 additional revcmue. half of which the Amer¬ 
ican Railway Express Company, before it w^as taken 
over entirely by the Government, had planned to distri¬ 
bute among employees in higher wages. The wage ques¬ 
tion is now before the Railroad Administration’s hoard 
of wages and working conditions. 
The reason for making the rate increase greater in 
Eastern territory, it is stated, was that hauls there are 
shorter and city delivery and terminal service, necessar¬ 
ily expensive, is proportionately higher. 
Specifically, the express rate order ])rovides that rates 
in the East, or rates on shipments originating in the East, 
he advanced 16 or 17 cents on first and second class ship¬ 
ments, and that elsewhei’c this increase be approximately 
12 cents. Local differentials would make the exact ad¬ 
vances vaiy somewhat about these averages. 
Merchandise rates to Canada are raised 16 cents per 
100 pounds, and commodity rates, with many exceptions, 
are to he raised 10 cents per 100 pounds. Milk and 
cream rotes, interstat(‘ and intrastate, are to he advanced 
26 ])er cent, above the rates in effect last July 1. Gar¬ 
den f)roduce and other food articles ship])ed extensively 
by express to cities will take the new rates of the classes 
in which they fall. 
Intrastate scales and classifications are abolished. 
GOOD PROSPECTS FOR RUSINESS 
Obituary. 
LEWIS R. TAYLOR 
Lewis R. Taylor, founder, and until recently senior 
member of the firm L. R. Taylor & Sons, Topeka, Kansas, 
died at his home, Oakwood Farm, near Topeka, October 
19th. Mr. Taylor was in his seventy-eighth year, and had 
been bedfast for over a year. 
Lewis R. Taylor was born near Gettyshurg, Pa., Jan¬ 
uary 2d, 1840. His early years were spent in this vicinity, 
and he counted it one of the privileges of his life to have 
heard Abraham Lincoln deliver his immortal address on. 
According to the daily press, there are one hundred 
million dollars worth of building plans said to he on the 
hoards of New York architects, waiting pei’inission of 
the War Industrial hoard to appear in the form of speci¬ 
fications and proposals for contract bids. 
In degree, the situation is duplicated all ov(U' the 
country. 
It is easy to imagine the resultant effect on the de¬ 
mand for landscape service and nursery stock when 
building and improvements once start in earnest. 
the occasion of the dedication of the Gettyshurg National 
Cemetery. 
Mr. Taylor began his life work, that of nurseryman, as 
a hoy, starting as a nursery salesman. About 1860 lie 
began work in the nursery of Geo. Peters & Co., of Troy, 
Oliio. A year or two later he began growing nursery 
stock under contract for the above tirm. 
In 1869 Mr. Taylor moved with his family to Topeka. 
Kansas, making his first planting of nursery stock at 
Topeka, soon thereafter. He was Dean of tli(‘ nursmy 
business in that section, and made the first commercial 
