206 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
and that every member is conducting his business in a manner 
creditable to the organization. 
A well organized planting department under expert supervision 
offers many advantages to the nurseryman. In the first place 
it is a means for greatly increasing our sales. 
A well-informed salesman, calling on a customer, may sell 
him a twenty-five or even a fifty-dollar order, but a well-trained 
landscape designer, who is prepared to draw a snappy sketch 
and show his customer how and where to use his plants will 
sell two hundred to a thousand dollars’ worth of plants with as 
little effort, and at the same time by his knowledge of landscape 
principles, increase the value of the property many times the 
cost of the sale. The former, however, with haphazard meth¬ 
ods of making a sale often perpetrates a rank injustice on his cus¬ 
tomer. 
It is an outlet for a great amount of large and over-sized 
stock, as many customers are anxious for immediate results, 
and when one is equipped to transport and plant large material 
he finds a ready market for it. 
In doing an agency or catalog business, it is always very hard 
to co-ordinate the production and sales departments. Shortages 
and surpluses are bound to occur. 
In designing the general frame work of a planting scheme, it 
often matters little what one of a half dozen varieties of any one 
plant are used and the designer with a large stock at his corn¬ 
in'nd can more or less make his lists conform to material at 
hand and at the same time serve his customers’ interest. It is 
the general arrangement and not the individual plants that 
count. A good landscape department is broadening and instruct¬ 
ive, bringing us daily in contact with a splendid type of people. 
It makes us study and keep alert, for in order to sensibly answer 
the questions asked we must continually refer to our horticul¬ 
tural encyclopedias and other authorities, and with this informa¬ 
tion at our command we soon breed confidence in our community 
and are able to send the bunk artist to the backwoods where he 
belongs. 
Last, but not least, it gives us an opportunity to become a 
powerful factor in the making of a more beautiful and more 
fruitful America by the creating of a healthy rivalry for better 
home grounds among individuals and better civic conditions 
among communities. 
SECRETARY AND TRAFFIC MANAGER’S REPORT 
Reduction in Freight Rates. 
In December and February we appeared before the Interstate 
Commerce Commission who were at that time conducting a gen¬ 
eral hearing regarding reduction in rates and made a plea for 
the nurserymen that if any reduction was granted that the nur¬ 
seryman be included and we gave it as the opinion of the nur¬ 
serymen that a percentage scale of reduction should be granted 
in the same manner that rates had been raised, instead of reduc¬ 
ing certain commodities and the National Industrial Traffic 
League, and just a few others took the same stand and no doubt 
all of you saw the decision in the daily papers rendered by the 
Commission in May where a general reduction of 10% all over 
the country was ordered to be effective on July 1st. 
Since the above decision was rendered several hundred million 
dollars cut in railroad labor has been ordered and if this goes 
into effect we feel confident that freight rates will come down 
again in the near future. 
Endeavored to Restore Second-Class Rating on Nursery Stock 
By Express. 
For sometime we have had this matter up with the exju'ess 
company by correspondence and personally called on them in 
New York in February and discussed this question fully, but so 
far have not been able to get any encouragement that the old 
rating would be restored. The express officials advised us that 
railroad companies at the present time were only receiving about 
31% of express revenue for their service and that if the express 
company lowered or wanted to lower any rates the carriers had 
to be consulted or made vigorous protest against it. Inquiry 
among railroad traffic officials confirmed the above statement 
but frankly states that the kind of contract between the carriers 
and express company should not enter into the argument or pro¬ 
test between a shipper and the express companies in any manner 
whatever. 
We are now preparing papers and compiling data on this ques¬ 
tion and as soon as received we expect to file a formal protest 
with the Interstate Commerce Commission and see if this old 
rating cannot be restored. The present express classification pro¬ 
vides second-class rating on many commodities that have as high 
or higher value than nursery stock and more perishable and we 
expect to bring this out at the hearing. 
In discussing this with one or two classification experts in the 
Interstate Commerce Building they unofficially gave it as their 
opinion that neither the Commission or express company would 
ever grant the second-class rate again on all nursery packages, 
but thought perhaps we might be successful before the Commis¬ 
sion in having the old rating restored on nursery stock packages 
weighing 300 pounds or less and we expect to make the fight 
along that line when it comes up. 
Prepayment of Freight on Nursery Stock Shipments. 
Some of the membership in Iowa, Massachusetts, Missouri, Ala¬ 
bama and other states had the usual trouble this spring of hav¬ 
ing their shipments refused by the carriers unless all freight 
charges were prepaid and when the matter was called to our at¬ 
tention we immediately took up with interested carriers and 
had the trouble adjusted. Along this line we would like to call 
the membership’s attention to Consolidated Freight Classification 
No. 2, page 5, Rule 9, Section 2, which reads as follows: 
“Freight on which prepayment is required may, on approval 
of the general freight department of the carrier with which the 
freight originated, be forwarded on a guarantee of the shipper 
that all charges will be paid at destination.” 
When handling nursery stock shipments very few of the agents 
remember the above rule, therefore, in future if any of you should 
have this trouble, simply call the agent’s attention to it and you 
should not have any further trouble, but if you do write or wire 
us and we will take it up promptly. We have called attention to 
this matter in our annual report for the last seven or eight years, 
but presume in the rush of the busy season you have forgotten it. 
Express Requirement That Outside Tag on Packages for All 
Territory Must Show a List of the Contents to Be Modified. 
American Railway Express general circular No. 4-B, Section 1, 
states that all packages or boxes of nursery stock must show an 
outside tag, giving a list of the contents of each package. This 
spring some of our members had their shipments temporarily 
refused or delayed by the express agent demanding that they 
comply with the above ruling and when the matter was called 
to our attention we phoned and wrote the headquarters of the 
express company at St. Louis and followed it up with a personal 
visit the next day and discussed the above ruling thoroughly and 
we convinced them that it would work very much of a hardship 
upon the nurserymen and be almost impossible to comply with 
and further suggested to them that as only three states required 
that an outside tag should show the contents of the package 
that the general rule referred to should be amended to read some¬ 
thing like the following: 
“Where certain states require that the package should bear an 
outside tag showing the nature of contents and quantity such 
outside tag for nursery stock going into such states should show 
the contents and quantity.” 
Under date of May 2nd the General Traffic Manager of the 
American Railway Express Company, New York City, wrote us 
in regard to this as follows: 
“Reply to your letter of April 10th has been delayed until I 
can make a little investigation of the subject matter. 
“Our sole purpose in requiring in our General Circular No. 4-B 
that the nature of contents and quantity of nursery stock should 
be shown on the outside tag was to insure compliance with the 
various state laws which require that this be done, and we 
thought it would be simpler to make that a requirement as to 
all shipments rather than confine it to the states which specifi¬ 
cally direct that it be done. 
“In view of what you say as to the annoyance and difficulty 
which it will make for the nurserymen, I am quite agreeable to 
amending it as suggested by you, that is, make the requirement 
only as to shipments destined to states which specifically re¬ 
quire it. 
“It may be sometime before we can get a supplement to these 
instructions in the hands of our agents, and meanwhile you are 
at liberty to make use of the information in this letter in any 
way that you see fit.” 
This correction, or amendment no doubt will be taken care of 
in the next supplement to general circular or long before the 
next nursery season commences. 
Classification Changes. 
During the year a few changes were made in the freight classi¬ 
fication which were in the nature of reduction on nursery stock 
shipments. One of these was in not dormant shrubs in crates, 
