224 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
BERLIN MECCA FOR HORTICULTURISTS OF MARY¬ 
LAND, DELAWARE, NEW JERSEY AND 
VIRGINIA 
Visitors began to arrive Thursday night and Friday 
morning the number was augmented by the crowds 
from New Jersey and Delaware. Later in the day the 
touring party came in from an inspection of the or¬ 
chards at Easton, arriving just in time for the bountiful 
luncheon provided by Harrisons' Nurseries for all the 
visitors. 
A real old-time country dinner was served in the 
packing shed to a large crowd, after which automobile 
transportation was provided for a tour of the orchards. 
The party first visited the Pomona Orchard located on 
the Berlin-Snow Hill road. The principal item of in¬ 
terest in this orchard was the large crop of Belle of 
Georgia and the extraordinary size of the Carman 
peaches. Forty-five peaches to a % basket gives some 
idea of the size that these beauties have attained. In this 
orchard demonstrations of the method of preparing the 
peach trees and applying Paradichlorobenzene for the 
control of peach tree borers was arranged under the 
auspices of the County Agent Mr. E. I, Oswald and State 
Entomologist, Prof. E. N. Cory. 
From there the party returned to Ironshire and view¬ 
ed the large blocks of peach and apple trees and other 
nursery stock, aggregating ten million trees. From there 
the tourist went to the Squire Farm, where the principal 
item of interest was the wonderfully fine crop of Wil¬ 
liams Early Red apples. The Black Twig orchard on 
this farm bore approximately one barrel of apples to the 
tree at six years of age and has been bearing a full crop 
each year since that time. This is remarkable for this 
variety, as the Paragon is notably a late bearer. 
Visit was next made to the farm where Admiral Com¬ 
modore Stephen Decatur was born, which is now an 
eleven thousand tree orchard in full bearing. In this or¬ 
chard there was an early variety of peach ripening and 
the visitors regaled themselves to their heart’s content. 
The party then proceeded to the Home Orchard and 
paid particular attention there to the excellent equip¬ 
ment for preparing spray materials and for handling 
the spray problem. In this orchard as in all of the 
others, elevated platforms with from two to three cook¬ 
ers and running water are used in preparing both the 
dormant spray materials and summer sprays. 
One of the most important factors in the success of 
these orchards is the thorough way in which they are 
sprayed from the time the buds begin to swell to the 
time the peaches are off the trees. A complete coating of 
Self-boiled Lime and Sulphur is maintained throughout 
the season. Another remarkable sight at the Home Farm 
was the eighteen year old Elberta peach orchard, which 
has a crop this year and has borne a crop for the last 
thirteen years. This is probably the best producing or¬ 
chard to be found in the United States. 
There are two thousand trees in this orchard and they 
have borne as high as thirty carloads of first class fruit 
in a season. This orchard, although a great age for a 
peach orchard, is showing no signs of failing and of the 
original planting of two thousand trees, practically all 
of them are still standing. 
The facilities for packing and loading the cars at the 
packing shed attracted a great deal of attention on ac¬ 
count of the amount of fruit going out from this station 
each year. To date fifty cars of Yellow Transparent 
apples and ten cars of peaches have moved from this 
point. There will be about three hundred cars of peaclr- 
es and one hundred and fifty cars of apples handled by 
this organization. The fruit is packed in the shed right 
along side of a switch capable of holding forty cars and 
carriers are shunted into iced cars on gravity roller car¬ 
riers, and shipped as far west as Indianapolis and north 
into Canada, and into the leading Southern cities. 
After the tour a great many of the visitors went to 
Ocean City for the week end to enjoy the surf bathing. 
PRELIMINARY REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON 
STANDARDIZATION OF HORTICULTURAL 
TRADE PRACTICE 
Made to the American Association of Nurserymen at the 
Detroit Convention, June, 1922 
To the President and members of the American Associa¬ 
tion of Nurserymen: 
This report is submitted for consideration at the an¬ 
nual convention of the American Association of Nursery¬ 
men, to be held at Detroit, Michigan, June 28-30, 1922. 
It must be considered as preliminary only, for the 
widely varying practices of nurserymen in different sec¬ 
tions ol America, and even in a single state have never 
before been carefully compared and correlated. 
Business organizations are fast coming to realize that 
such loose and widely varying methods of business prac¬ 
tice are injurious to buyer and seller alike. Newspapers 
recently carried the following despatch from Washing¬ 
ton under date of May 24th: 
“Resolutions favoring standardization of sizes and 
grades of lumber were unanimously today adopted by 
the national conference of lumber manufacturers meet¬ 
ing at the commerce department. The conference also 
went on record as in favor of association inspection and 
guaranty of the integrity of quality and quantity of lum¬ 
ber products for the protection of the public.” 
The imperative need of standardized rules and prac¬ 
tice among nurserymen is obvious and now admitted by 
all progressive nurserymen. With co-operation of all 
members ol the American Association of Nurserymen it 
should be possible for your committee to prepare for 
adoption at the annual convention in June 1923, a code of 
Trade Practice which will be fairly complete, and be of 
incalculable benefit to the nurserymen and American hor¬ 
ticulture at large. 
A. History and Reasons for Standardization 
At the 1911 summer meeting of the Ornamental Grow¬ 
ers’ Association a resolution was adopted as follows: 
“That the standard of grading all ornamental deciduous 
trees be by caliper rule in all grades of 1% inches and 
over; that the measurements be made 6 inches above 
ground, and that in all published lists this standard be 
declared and in practice maintained.” 
