268 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
allowing only the difference of a sixteenth of an inch in caliper 
between the grades. This would more especially meet the 
needs of the wholesale growers. It is desirable that the par¬ 
ticular point on the tree and plant where the caliper is taken 
should be definitely established, and that the character of the 
tree and plant belonging to each grade be more accurately 
described than is now customary. 
I believe it would be possible through the influence of this 
Association to bring about an agreement among nurserymen 
to adopt a more uniform description by grades than that now 
in vogue, one that would simplify matters and prevent much 
of the confusion and misunderstanding likely to occur between 
the buyer and seller as long as the present lack in uniformity 
of grading exists. 
The following story may be of interest to you as it explains 
how the privilege happened to come to me of being the first 
nurseryman to apply a caliper to a tree in order to learn the 
grade to which it belonged. 
At the age of 20, I was admitted by my father as a partner 
in his nursery business at Dayton, Ohio, the name of the new 
firm being Jacob Heikes & Son, At that time, and in later 
years, we were large buyers of standard and dwarf pears and 
every Fall I was delegated to go “Down East’’ to buy. It 
would be difficult for you to imagine, under the trade regula¬ 
tions existing today, the difficulties which in those days an 
unsophisticated young man from the West encountered when 
trying to deal with the older nurserymen at Rochester, 
Geneva, Syracuse, Lockport, and Dansville. No standard 
of grading had been established, and “First Class’’ and “No. 
i’’ were very indefinite terms. 
I had a predeliction for buying of a certain firm, consisting 
of three partners. The eldest would sell me the trees in the 
most charming, gentlemanly way, all to be first class; the 
next in age was the digger and packer, who would, in the most 
smiling manner, dig with the utmost exactness, before my 
eyes, a size smaller than I had expected, but, mind you, with¬ 
out any wrong intent. The youngest member of the firm 
was the treasurer and collector. He never smiled and never 
shaded the prices made by the seller. My high respect and 
admiration for the' men composing this firm has always 
remained a pleasing memory of bygone days and had a 
standard of grades been then in use I should not have been 
tempted to relate this incident in connection with this subject. 
I began to realize that as a matter of necessity I was 
obliged to adopt some plan to secure the exact grade of trees 
wanted at a specified price. It soon occurred to me that the 
caliper and age of the tree should be stated and agreed upon 
in making my purchases. The next step was to find a caliper 
with which to make the measurements. It was found that 
the ordinary caliper used by mechanics answered the purpose 
fairly well, but desiring a more suitable instrument I designed 
later the first nurserymen’s caliper, which proved to be quite 
satisfactory and which to this day, along with others more 
recently introduced, meets every requirement. 
Seeing the great advantage of following a rule in grading, 
it gradually dawned upon me that a further advantage might 
be gained in printing prices by grade in our price list, and we 
later also took the lead in printing the grade count in our Fall 
and Spring price lists, showing the number of each variety by 
grade and quoting at the same time the priee for each grade. 
This innovation has evidently become quite popular as it 
has been adopted by many of the leading nurserymen. It 
has proven a great saving of time and correspondence, and 
facilitates the bringing together of buyer and seller. This 
plan also aids in determining the condition of the trade by 
showing the number, grades and varieties of trees upon the 
market. 
A further improvement can be made in this plan by nur¬ 
serymen being more exact in giving the numbers of trees and 
issuing their price lists oftener, and, I might add, by printing 
more uniform prices. 
STANDARDIZATION OF RETAIL PRICES 
Abner Hoopes, Westchester, Pa. 
Your Program Committee has asked me to read a paper 
on the standardization of retail prices. This is a subject in 
which all nurserymen should be deeply interested, as it is a 
fundamental principle of successful business. 
It seems to me that the best way to accomplish the 
standardization of price is, if possible, to have a standardiza¬ 
tion of value. Most articles of merchandise have a fixed 
intrinsic value. If you go to a silversmith’s to buy his wares, 
you will find the silver stamped aecording to its value—■ 
whether sterling or plated—and his articles in gold valued 
according to their assay. The Government requires this for 
the protection of the purchaser. Now, no matter to what 
city or to what shop you go, you will find that the intrinsic 
value of gold and silver will be relatively the same; in other 
words, there is a standardization of price because of the 
Standardization of Value. 
This is also the case in most other commercial commodi¬ 
ties, therefore, why should it not hold good with nursery 
products ? As the Government has no means of weighing or 
measuring (in this sense) the intrinsic value of nursery stock 
and putting upon it an official value, the purchaser of nursery 
stock is obliged to wait in many cases years before being able 
to determine the real value of the goods and is necessarily 
dependent upon the integrity of the nurseryman as to its 
reliability. The nurseryman devotes his land, time, labor and 
capital to the production of his goods. If he grows stock by 
modem methods, fighting and destroying the numerous pests 
and successfully contending with climatic and other unfavor¬ 
able conditions, it is only right that he should receive a priee 
for his product which will justly and fairly compensate him 
for his trouble, expense and capital invested, as well as the 
risks he is obliged to take. Every nurseryman should charge 
a price that will enable him to deliver goods of “sterling” 
value. 
If nurserymen generally would co-operate in the produc¬ 
tion and offering for sale of only stock of the highest standard 
of quality, there would necessarily be a standardization of 
price, and nurserymen would find that the prices they would 
be justified in charging for such stock would show a profit 
adequate to the capital invested. 
By standardization of priees, I do not mean a combination 
to fix prices, but rather a uniformity of price as an aid to the 
establishment of the confidence of the customer. Nothing is 
more injurious to business or more unjust than the sliding 
