THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
67 
AS I SEE IT 
By M. T. Nutt 
Why all the “Holier than thou” talk and resolutions 
which occur at meetings of nurserymen during Ihe last 
year or two? To hear these fellows talk you might think 
all nurserymen are dyed in the wool Ihieves, rogues and 
scalawags, and that the only object of a nurseryman’s 
association, he it national, state or sectional, is to hunt 
out these fellows and ride them down. 
Now I don’t want to give support to the dishonest nur¬ 
seryman by any means, and I am just as anxious to 
oust him from our association as any one else, but why 
all the publicity? 
Moreover, though I have been in the nursery business 
a good many years, I have never found a very large pro¬ 
portion of these fellows in the trade. There are some, 
yes, but for everyone you find there are ninety-nine good, 
square, honest and responsible men. x4re these ninety- 
nine to be condemned because one is bad? 
Occasionally we hear of a minister going wrong, but 
we do not condemn the entire ministry because of the 
one black sheep, nor do you hear of this black sheep be¬ 
ing advertised in gatherings or meetings of ministers. 
He is ousted from his church, but it is all done quetly and 
wth as little publicity as possible 
On the other hand, all this talk at Nurserymen’s meet- 
igs is advertising to the world that there are untold num¬ 
bers of suspicious characters in the nursery business, un¬ 
til now, every buyer of nursery stock feels lie is getting- 
stuck. no matter how reliable may be the firm he is 
doing business with. 
Seems to me its time to call a halt to this sort of pub¬ 
licity and if house cleaning is to be done, do it without 
kicking up so much dust. 
This is the usual method of selecting Vice Presidents 
of the American Association of Nurserymen: 
It is the close of an afternoon session. The president 
announces that in the evening, at 8 o’clock the vice presi¬ 
dents will assemble and nominate officers for the follow¬ 
ing year and report at the morning session. That prior to 
Ihe meeting in the evening, the delegates from each State 
shall get together and select a vice president who will 
attend the evening gathering. 
Afternoon session closes—John gets up. sees Charlie 
standing near him. “Hey! Charlie, where is Frank and 
Sam? Gotta have meet in’ to choose vice president—saw 
Bill around few minutes ago, gotta have Bill. Say Fred, 
don’t go way, be with you in a minit, gotta elect a vice 
president. Got them all together, Charlie? Well, let’s 
start. Who was vice president last year.” (No one 
knows; it was of small importance anyhow.) “Say, 
Charlie,” says John, “1 think Mike was vice president 
last year, let’s pin it on him again this year.” (In the 
mean time Fred is getting impatient waiting for Charlie 
to get through with his meeting.) “All right, Fred, just 
another minit. Don’t go way, I want to talk to you. 
Some one objects to Mike for V. P. “Well, all right,” 
says John, “you fellows fix it up and it will suit me. I 
gotta date with Fred,” and so off goes John and the few 
who are left by that time, select some one who probably 
is not there and pin the job on him. 
And in this manner is selected a state vice president, 
who, as a matter of fact, should be a good live wire, and 
make the office really worth while. As matters stand to¬ 
day. if means nothing. 
The State vice president should watch legislation in his 
state, secure good, reliable nurserymen for membership, 
and a lot of things which he could look after in his 
state, which would make the National Association worth 
while. 
I happened to be standing in front of the news stand 
in the Columbus, Ohio, railroad station a few weeks ago, 
and looking over the papers on sale I saw a copy of the 
Philadelphia Ledger, and recalling that that was the 
home of my old friend, “Tommy” Meehan, I bought a 
copy to see what was going on in that “burg” and also as 
I still have in mind the very enjoyable time we had when 
the National Convention was held there several years 
ago. 
The following “poem” which 1 saw in the “Ledger” 
struck me as being particularly applicable to us nursery¬ 
men, and I therefore reproduce it. 
OLD MAN TROUBLE 
Old Man Trouble come a knockin’ at the door, 
Says, “You’s had some bother and you’s gwinter hab some more. 
Se dat sun ashinin’ bright and warm up in de sky? 
He g’inter git so hot he’ll nearly melt you by and by; 
See dem little flowers a-bloomin’ so sweet and so fair? 
Dey’ll soon be hidden by de weeds, agrowin’ everywhere. 
De bird dat keeps a singin’ though it helps to cheer you some— 
You’ll never hear it warble when de skeeter starts to hum.” 
Old Man Trouble he siddown an’ rest his hat. 
But we had to move him round to brush de ashes off de mat. 
De way he kep’ atalkin’ would pesterate a saint, 
De things he says will happen is enough to make you faint. 
But we rapped ’im with a broomstick and we splashed ’im wif 
a mop, 
We spread de paint and whitewash everywhere he tried to stop, 
Till Old Man Trouble says, “I’ll bid good-day to you 
It ain’t no chance to visit where there’s so much to do.” 
Every now and then some one takes another “crack 
at Quarantine 37. Mostly the arguments are vague or 
show more or less ignorance on the part of the writer. 
The latest contribution appeared in the February 11th is¬ 
sue of the Florists Exchange, entitled, “Our Agricultural 
Exports in Danger” by John Kingdon Smith. I don’t 
know the gentleman and never heard of him before, but 
be uses some arguments against “37” which to my know¬ 
ledge, have never been advanced before, and bis state¬ 
ments, and facts too, are not “hot air.” Moreover, any 
one reading the article will immediately realize that it 
was written by a man of intelligence, who stated facts 
and not theories. Nurserymen should not fail to read the 
article. It’s a pity that Mr. Smith was not on one of the 
several committees which appeared before the F. H. B. 
at the time hearings on “Quarantine 37” were taking- 
place. 
The article referred to appears on the preceding page 
of this issue. —Editor. 
