84 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
the planter, they are an unfinished product. The nurseryman 
has done all that he can do; yet much remains to be done. If 
results are represented by 100 per cent., then I suggest that 90 
per cent, lies in the hands of the planter to do. What we nur¬ 
serymen are interested in is to get the planter to do his 90 per 
cent, and to do it in the right way and at the right time. 
Planting directions are very generally distributed by nursery¬ 
men, I believe, when they deliver their trees. But, as it is im¬ 
portant to start right, we might make sure that buyers are 
always given necessary instructions for proper planting. And 
that, I take it, includes information as to soil, situation and 
location. 
Pruning is very important to fruit trees. I have often thought 
that it might be a good idea to prune all fruit trees before ship¬ 
ment. It would mean extra work but it would save some pack¬ 
ing cost and transportation expense and those are important con¬ 
siderations these days. I do not know if anybody ever tried that 
or how well it worked, or whether it would work if tried. There 
would be objections. The cutting back could be done only with 
the knowledge and consent of the buyer. Some buyers might 
object. Some would not understand. I think a powerful con¬ 
sideration would be the loss of size in the trees delivered; be¬ 
cause buyers are prone to attach importance to size. Some buy¬ 
ers want cord-wood and some nurserymen may think it an ad¬ 
vantage to deliver cord-wood. A big tree often means a big price. 
But cutting back and proper pruning before shipment would be 
economical, would insure proper pruning where the average 
small buyer will not prune at all, and would mean an added 
service and a corresponding value to the buyer. 
There is an excellent book on pruning, “The Little Pruning 
Book” I think it is called, by F. F. Rockwell, the efficient chair¬ 
man of the American Association’s Market Development Com¬ 
mittee. It was written for a firm that sells pruning knives. 
Now that firm doesn’t care a hang about trees or pruning, but 
it does want to sell pruning knives, and so it advertises and 
sells this little book that tells why and how to prune trees. The 
trees are your trees. You, too, are interested in having them 
pruned properly. Might not that be a good book for you to sell 
or even to distribute free to your customers? 
Spraying is very important not only in the case of fruit trees 
but other stock as well And that is the hardest thing to get done. 
Probably it is the nurseryman’s greatest problem today: to get 
planters to spray their trees. Neglect to attend to that is the 
cause of comment so wide-spread as to put it in the class of pro¬ 
paganda to discourage the planting of home orchards. I don’t 
mean that it is organized or traceable to a common source. But 
we do know that some of the entomologists have intimated that 
the small plantings are a menace to the commercial orchards; 
that being as a rule unsprayed, they become breeding places and 
disseminators of pests. I have read in the late issues of two im¬ 
portant and influential agricultural papers, articles that must 
have the effect of discouraging home owners from buying fruit 
trees. The conclusion drawn, if not invited, must be that after 
all, it is cheaper and better to buy the fruit grown by those 
whose business it is to grow fruit commercially, as being cleaner 
and better and cheaper than any that can be grown at home. 
Now, fruit growing, I mean commercial fruit growing, is a 
highly specialized business. It has to be, to be successful. So 
does any other business, for that matter. A commercial orchard- 
ist has to know what he is about. He must know how to prune 
and spray his trees, he must know how exactly what to spray 
for and why and when, he must know what spray materials to 
use and he must have the efficient machinery to use them. But 
these are things that the average farmer does not know and 
things that he does not have. His situation is about this: There 
is no local shop in his town where he can find sprayers and ma¬ 
terials; he sends to Sears-Roebuck for his tank, he goes to the 
farmers’ supply store for his lime-sulphur, to the coal-yard for 
his lime, to the seed store for his black-leaf-forty and goodness 
knows where for repairs that he can’t make himself; not to men¬ 
tion the hardware store for brass screen and the candy store 
for wooden pails and some other place for arsenic and somewhere 
else for directions. 
When the farmer is up against that sort of thing, fighting 
with the bugs for the apples on a few trees, I can understand 
why the bugs sometimes win out and the farmer decides to buy 
his fruit. 
We want the farmer to grow some fruit at home, but we’ve 
got to boost up his spirits and help him do it. 
It is all very well to spend money to encourage folks to buy 
trees, but if there is anything in Dr. Bailey’s statement that our 
goods are a 99 per cent, failure, then we had better spend some 
time and money in telling people how to take care of what they 
buy from us. 
The automobiles have service stations scattered all over the 
country. They make touring easy. The nursery industry is not 
large enough to warrant nurserymen, even collectively, setting¬ 
up service stations. But would it not be possible, through ex¬ 
isting organizations, to co-operate with available local agencies 
like the State Experiment Stations, the farm bureau agents and 
the county agricultural demonstrators? Could we not see to it 
that public lectures are arranged and demonstrations staged at 
the right time for spraying? I notice that at many of the insti¬ 
tutes held this winter, time is given to orchards and fruit-grow¬ 
ing, but we ought to see to it that this department of agriculture 
receives attention everywhere. And could not some arrangement 
be made by the trade for their traveling salesmen to see that 
some store in every town carries in stock spray materials and is 
prepared to take orders for spray pumps, keeping repair parts 
in stock? I don’t know whether that could be done or not. I 
don’t know whether you consider it important or not. I am 
asking questions. In orcharding sections, this matter is taken 
care of. Men make a business of spraying. I believe that many 
small cities and towns could furnish profitable employment to 
men properly trained for the work of pruning, spraying and 
caring for places not large enough to warrant the single expense. 
That is the way it is done in my home town, and if it were not 
done that way, I am quite sure it would not be done at all. Will 
any of your trade organizations take this matter up? Does this 
association think it important? When a thing is to be done, 
somebody must do it; everybody won’t. 
I think it might be wise to encourage the planting of more 
dwarf fruit trees. They are much more easily sprayed with the 
ordinarily small sprayers. 
I have elsewhere urged the importance of using aphis-resistant 
stocks for apples. Such trees will be demanded soon; conditions 
require them. It might be well to look ahead and provide them. 
I do not look for the passing of the home orchard. Nursery¬ 
men are going to be helped in retaining them by the universal 
love that man has for his own vine and fig tree. The idea of pro¬ 
duction, of possession, adds a flavor that the fruit stands can¬ 
not give. 
And low prices for farm crops are going to help sell fruit 
trees to farmers. It takes more than a bushel of corn to buy a 
can of peaches today—if the farmer can find a buyer for the 
corn. The farmer can get two cans of peaches for a bushel of 
wheat, provided he adds fifteen cents in change. He can buy a 
can of pears for a bushel of corn. Cherries and plums cost two 
bushels of corn per can. When it comes to the fresh fruit, the 
farmer can exchange a bushel of corn for six Spitzenberg or six 
Winesap apples; or for three Anjou pears. Right now, the farm¬ 
er can exchange a bushel of wheat for two peaches from South 
Africa; or, for a bushel of corn and a bushel of wheat, he can 
get one pound of grapes from Belgium. When the farmer makes 
comparisons like this, and figures on what he can grow at home, 
he is going to continue to buy your trees if given proper encour¬ 
agement and reasonable assistance. For the price of one can 
of peaches, he can buy a peach tree; for the price of two cans of 
cherries or plums he can buy a cherry or a plum tree. I submit 
that you gentlemen with fruit trees to sell might profitably trans¬ 
late these figures into the terms of the cost of your trees and 
tell the result to the farmer. They offer a mighty good reason 
for buying your trees. 
Give the farmer to understand when lie plants fruit trees 
about his home that something is expected of him before he 
can get results. He buys things that are, in fact, unfinished pro¬ 
ducts; teach him how to finish them and get profits out of them. 
He will understand. He does not plant his corn and expect it 
to hoe its own row; nor his other crops and consider that there 
is nothing more to do. Tell him there is a lot to do with trees, 
They don’t bring their crops unaided. Extravagant stories of 
wonderful yields sold at top-market prices in places that he can¬ 
not possibly reach result in nothing but harm to the trade. They 
arouse hopes that cannot be realized, they cite isolated instances 
and invite their acceptance as the general and universal. 
And planters should be told very frankly that not all trees are 
likely to live, because there is a certain unavoidable mortality. 
The most skilled nurseryman cannot plant a block of young 
trees and dig an equal number at maturity. The value of those 
that do live should be emphasized. A man may plant a dozen 
rose bushes and if half of them live and bloom for two years or 
even one year, he has his money’s worth. A rose bush costs 
now. how much?—from a dollar to a dollar and a half. That 
would buy only half a dozen blooms at any time of the year. 
Another thing: May I not say that it would be a service to 
the planter and serve the best ultimate interests of the nursery 
trade also, if, instead of introducing at once the new varieties, 
trees of new fruits should be distributed for trial and testing 
