112 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
on Agriculture has denied the appropriation. Because of the 
fact that we have already sought the statistics, it seems to me 
we are in light of the Conference report in a better position to 
secure them than formerly. 
“There were from 1200 to 1500 persons in attendance at the 
Conference, of which but 300 were delegates; none but delegates 
were allowed the privilege of the floor, or permitted to partici¬ 
pate in the voting. In such a large gathering of prominent per¬ 
sons, one is apt to be more quiet in his remarks than in a small 
group of persons with whom he is intimate. Therefore, I felt 
there was little I could contribute to the value of the discussion 
on the floor of the Conference, expecting on Thursday afternoon 
when after five hours of flirting with organized labor through 
Samuel Gcmpers, it seemed at times as if an alliance would be 
formed between labor and agriculture. I did feel the necessity 
of contributing to the debate, and made a plea as best I could, 
that the nursery interest and agriculture generally had nothing 
to gain from an alliance with the organization that Mr. Gompers 
represented, and that we, in fact, had everything to gain by 
standing alone, and apart from other organizations. 
“I hope in doing this, I truthfully represented the feeling of 
the nurserymen. A few minutes later it was apparent that I 
expressed the feeling of the majority of Agriculturists present, 
for organized labor was told in a very decisive vote, that lower 
freight rates were imperative, even if railroad operatives had to 
suffer a deflation to secure the result. 
“It will be interesting to nurserymen generally to know that 
during the conference an appointment was secured by a com¬ 
mittee of the O. G. A., consisting of Mr. T. B. Meehan, Mr. Wm. 
Flemer, Sr, and myself. We met by appointment with members 
of the F. H. B., and requested the admission of Norway Maples 
into the United States during the interim that the product is be¬ 
ing established here, until such time as the seedling now being 
produced are ready for market. A reply from the F. H. B. has 
not yet been had. 
“Nurserymen will also be interested in knowing that in a con¬ 
ference with Professor Corbett of the Bureau of Plant Industry, 
I learned that the appropriation of $20,000.00 per annum, that 
nurserymen helped secure for experimentation in the growing 
of fruit tree stocks in this country, has resulted in progress, 
whereby the department feels that the prospect of success will 
grow out of a production that root cuttings, rather than from 
seeds. If their experiments prove practical, then this method 
of production means that nurserymen can more readily control 
the strain of fruit stocks that they grow, than has been the case 
when seeds were purchased from sources that they had not 
personally known of.” 
To (lie Editor, National Nurseryman, 
Flourtown, Pa. 
Dear Sir— 
Let it be said that the State of Illinois has a real live 
State Nurserymen’s Organization. 
It was my good fortune to be present at their morning 
and afternoon sessions in Chicago, January 20th. There 
was a large attendance, a splendid program and very 
able speakers. 
One of the subjects introduced for discussion by Ar¬ 
thur Hill, Dundee, Ill., was that of contract forms. His 
thought being that a plan could be worked out whereby 
different nurserymen in different parts of the country 
could get together and use a standard contract form and 
by way of illustration, pointed out what had been done 
at a recent Contractor’s Convention at Washington D. C . 
where a summary showed that six hundred different 
contract forms were being used in the building and al¬ 
lied industries. 
It was generally understood that so many forms of 
contracts covering virtually the same subject, entailed 
an endless amount of red tape, confusion and misunder¬ 
standing and this Convention went on record by adopt¬ 
ing six contract forms, the same to cover the entire 
range of their operations. Mr. Hill’s contention that the 
nurserymen get together and adopt some such scheme. 
as I see it, was certainly a point well taken and the Il¬ 
linois Convention went on record to the effect that their 
executive committee was to draft two contract forms to 
submit for discussion and approval next winter at the 
next Convention and very likely to submit the same to 
the Retail Nurserymen’s Association when they convene 
at the National Convention next summer. 
There was also a great deal of discussion on the ever 
burning subject that of replacing nursery stock and 
while there was a considerable diversity of opinion, 
from what I could learn, the majority of nurserymen at 
this Convention at least, seemed to think that the mat¬ 
ter of replacing nursery stock free was a cancer to the 
business that must be cut out sooner or later. Surely, 
common sense in the economic administration of the 
nursery business must bring home to those in the bus¬ 
iness that replacing of stock is not a sellng asset, but is 
an expense. Look at it from any angle you will. There 
is no advantage in sales promotion if most everybody is 
selling nursery stock under a promise of Free replace¬ 
ment and if we are honest with oursellves, we must ad¬ 
mit that this feature of the business leaves a bitter taste 
in the mouths of many of our patrons, for while the 
promise of free replacement is freely made, it is not 
always kept. 
We must admit that the average salesagent is very 
migratory in his habits. He may sell a lot of stock this 
year and promise free replacement in so doing and next 
year, he may not be in the same place at all; have gone 
into other business or for some reason, dropped out. It 
does not follow that we are always able to get a man 
immediately in that particular territory and the people 
who bought and, of course, lost some stock are looking 
for this replacing agent and he does not appear. They 
think of writing to the house about it, but put it off and 
other agents come along and try to sell them and the 
soreness is still there because of their previous exper¬ 
ience. 
Mr. Hill illustrated his point very clearly when he 
said that the customer never knows just where he is at, 
for assuming that prices are about equal, a salesman 
makes an approach and the question of replacing comes 
up and he says “My Company does not replace any¬ 
thing.” The matter is in abeyance for a while and the 
customer is considering the purchase. Another agent 
comes along and he has a proposition whereby he re¬ 
places anything that dies at one half price. The cus¬ 
tomer figures this is a better deal than the first, but is 
still undecided, thinking perhaps there is something 
better in store for him, when the third agent puts in an 
appearance and he bags the order, because his company 
does replace Free. This means a lot of wasted effort. 
It is usually disconcerting to the customer. He cannot 
understand why one concern does not replace, why one 
concern replaced at half price and it is hard for him to 
understand if there are companies who replace free 
why they do not all replace free and as I see it, the 
only way to cure the evil, for an evil it surely is, is to 
fight fire with fire. That is to say, if at present, some 
firms hold an advantage by reason of replacing free and 
others either do not replace or replace at half price, let 
us take that advantage away from them by everybody in 
the retail business agreeing to replace free and I ven- 
