THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
195 
public wants to know about your goods, the people are on the 
lookout constantly for new things. 
Now, gentlemen, your chairman has told me to be very brief, 
but I think that at this convention, if nothing else is done, noth¬ 
ing during its session at Detroit but to think over this matter 
of selling, let us not call it advertising, this matter of mer¬ 
chandising, of disposing of our goods at a reasonable price, of 
disposing of more goods, let us not look at this advertising as 
something that is going to waste a lot of money. It will not do 
it if it is handled judiciously, but you gentlemen cannot handle 
it because you have not got the time, you have got to turn it 
over and get somebody to co-operate with you who has the 
time and does nothing else, who knows how to do it. 
Mere insertion of one notice in newspaper or billboard is only 
one step. In our accounts we handle colt revolvers, automatic 
pistols, Boynton heating systems, and I could go on down the 
line, 15 to 20 accounts, and the mere insertion of advertising in 
those accounts is merely an incident. We find, in addition to 
educating the consumer, that we have to educate the dealer, we 
have to tell him about our goods, otherwise how would the re¬ 
tail clerk in the store know about the goods. Do you know the 
people go to the retail clerk to ask about things, and I believe 
there are many additional channels of distribution that you have 
not yet found. We may know how to educate them up, how would 
he know the details unless you educate him, and so we do what 
we can to send out information. We tell them how much we are 
spending to bring people into his store, and if they come into 
the drug store to buy a hot water bottle, or something like 
that, they will perhaps buy shaving soap, or dental floss. And 
so we merchandise advertising, and we know how to do it, from 
our experience. 
It is all right, you people have been going ahead and I am 
not criticising, but I am going to tell you a fact: You go ahead 
and you think you bring a nice catalog and it is well written 
and all that. Now, you may sell some people who know, but of 
the hundred thousand people in this country that will get it, 
most of them do not understand Latin and when you sell some 
shrub that is known by the name of Spirits Frumenti (laughter) 
some are going to ask what you mean by Spirits Frumenti. 
Gentlemen, you have got to get right down and talk to the 
people. You have got to talk to the man who is building a 
little house, who is going to take only a few trees and shrubs, 
or flowers. When you multiply that man by two or three mil 
lions, you are going to build up some volume of business. 
As far as your organization goes, from what I know of it, and 
I have looked into it somewhat during my connection with the 
florist advertising, you have a wonderful organization here, but 
you are missing a great bet and a great opportunity by not get¬ 
ting more members in and thereby helping each other. They 
will say, as they say in every organization, “Well, what do I 
get out of it?” A man gets out of an organization—and I have 
been a member of a great many myself—a man gets out of an 
organization just what he puts into it, and probably he gets a 
little more than he puts into it, but the fellow that goes along 
only for what he is getting out of it is overlooking the fact that 
if he got everybody working with him, and in union there is 
strength, “United we stand, Divided we fall;” it is going to cre¬ 
ate more business generally, and his share is going to be pro¬ 
portionately larger. But you members sitting in this room should 
have no hesitation in going out and getting four or five new 
men into the business, because you can readily show them that 
this organization is going forward, that this business is going to 
grow, going to increase, and that they will benefit themselves 
if they all come into the association, that they will be well repaid 
for every man that they get into the association. 
I could go on and talk for an hour and a half more, but the 
chairman has asked me to be brief, and I will cover the ground 
in a few words by recalling again to your mind the fact that 
advertising is a proven force. If advertising is judiciously 
handled by competent people, who know where to get buyers, it 
will make sales, and whether you are selling a tree, or a shrub, 
or a plant, or an automobile or a bi-plane, you have to go to 
the people who are prospective customers. Now, advertising 
will do that. Take any one of you men who are doing a big busi¬ 
ness, who have agents, and suppose you could multiply your sales 
force by a hundred thousand, it stands to reason that you could 
sell more goods. Well, you cannot do it, because your expenses 
are so great, but, gentlemen, it is reasonable to say that an ad¬ 
vertising which reaches all the people all the time is doing 
the work of thousands of salesmen and it is a quicker way to 
do it. It is a more efficient way to do it. Instead of having one 
or two, or three or four or fifty or one hundred salesmen, we 
have a chance to get thousands of salesmen and you get it 
through advertising. 
Do you stop to consider that allowing five persons to every 
farm in this country, there are over 20,000,000 farmers, and if 
you spend $2000 a year advertising, merchandising or publicity, 
that you would spend only about $200,000 a year? Look at the 
case of Mr. Wrigley, starting out with a capital of $32, never 
put another cent into the business. He tried home advertising 
and selling, he sold baking powder, he dropped it; he gave away 
premiums, dropped it; gave away chewing gum premiums, and 
got into the business, and I understand his business runs into 
$36,000,000 a year. Now you know of the success and I know 
and a great many more of the Waterman Fountain Pen. He 
started in New York, borrowed $62.50 from the advertising agent, 
but, gentlemen, they grew; they did not start throwing their 
money away, throwing it in blindly; they went about it scientifi¬ 
cally, as you do in your business. There is no gamble about it 
at all, it is an assured force, it is a force that will enable you to 
grow more things, it will enable you to sell what you grow. 
People are anxious to get things that are beautiful; you men 
have it. We have proven it in the case of flowers. We can 
prove it in your case, and I am not talking as an individual 
about some advertising man. Then when you go to chambers 
of commerce, when you inaugurate competition between cities 
for the city beautiful, for parks, for more trees, instead of the 
innane idea of naming streets in cities for the poor boys lost in 
the war, planting 20,000 trees that were planted, there ought to 
be more. What will perpetuate their memory, what will do it 
better, what will be more appropriate than the planting of a 
tree in memory of those boys? Gentlemen, you have wonderful 
opportunities but you are so engrossed in your business, which 
does naturally take much of your time, that, like me and my busi¬ 
ness, or the man running a store at the next corner, we do not 
stop to think, we do not have time to think of the possibilities 
and opportunities that confront us. And so, I say, gentlemen, 
if you do not do another thing at this convention for the rest 
of the time, forget me personally, but let me call to your attention 
as strongly and as forcibly as I can, the opportunity that you 
have. 
Organize a publicity committee today, not just good fellows, and 
I do not know who your publicity committee is at the present 
time, but men of initiative, men of enthusiasm, successful men 
make up a committee of five, not more and probably not less. 
Let them get together, make those men realize that they will 
give some of their time to this movement, to the investigation 
of the opportunities, to the possibilities that they will be doing 
something for the nursery business that will be a monument to 
their memory, not only as long as they live, but forever, be¬ 
cause they will give you a chance to grow more, to sell more, 
to make more and to do more for the public, for the people 
and for the United States. (Applause.) 
President Lindley—I left a call for half past six this morning 
and I got up and wrote this: The first sentence is “Difference, 
Prominent—conspicuous.” I figured that there has been a lot 
said about the traffic cop. He is the most conspicuous, but he 
is not the most prominent person in the block. While I am not 
so big as Mike, I hope to measure up with Mike. 
I hope to be a doer, rather than a sayer. 
Hill and Sizemore desire to say it with interest, S per cent. 
Mike has left me a fine balance to work with. Which kind of 
interest do you desire? If I interpret the wish of the associa 
tion, it is to get a national interest in our industry. 
You cannot make bricks without machinery and machinery 
has to be managed with money. The next thing, I desire to be 
conservative. Then I have this: 
Bite off more than you can chew, 
Then chew it. 
Plan for more than you can do, 
Then do it. 
THE NEW OFFICERS 
The officers elected by the American Association of 
Nurserymen to serve for the ensuing year arc: 
President—Paul G. Lindley, Pomona, North Carolina. 
Vice President—Harlan P. Kelsey, Salem, Mass. 
Treasurer—-J. W. Hill, Des Moines, Iowa. 
Secretary and Traffic Manager—Chas. 
Louisiana, Mo. 
Sizemore, 
