THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
555 
jNfotc and Comment 
SUBSTITUTION FROM THE STANDPOINT OF THE NUR¬ 
SERYMAN 
“Having spent all my life in the nursery business until 
four years ago, serving as an apprentice, foreman, superin¬ 
tendent and partner, I feel qualified to speak a word for the 
nurserymen,” says E. S. Black in The Rural New Yorker. 
“The seedsmen and nurserymen are only human beings, 
therefore cannot be held more responsible for their failures 
than the trucker or fruit grower for theirs, neither should 
they be held morally or legally more responsible for a mis¬ 
labeled tree any more than the fruit grower should for a mis¬ 
labeled package of fruit. The buyer of a barrel of apples 
labeled XX and topped XX who finds the remainder of the 
barrel culls or worse, has just as much cause for a damage 
suit against the fruit grower as many of the buyers of nur¬ 
sery stock have against the nurseryman. When deliberate, 
transparent fraud is committed, both nurseryman and fruit 
grower should willingly make amends for such losses on the 
part of the buyer. When mistakes are made unintention¬ 
ally, both sides should be ready to make reasonable conces¬ 
sions. Many complaints are unreasonable and in conse¬ 
quence therefore are hard to adjust.” 
“A planter bought a few thousand dormant buds after 
he was advised by the nurseryman that dormant buds were 
unsatisfactory stock to plant, but having the peach fever he 
insisted on having them. Those dormant buds were pur¬ 
chased from a small nursery and were dug, bundled, and 
delivered by the grower to the nurseryman, who packed and 
shipped them in the original bundles to the planter. This 
planter was a lumberman, and knew nothing about planting 
or caring for a tree, so entrusted the planting to hired help. 
A severe drought soon after the stock was planted caused the 
loss of practically the whole lot of these dormant buds, 
which under the most favorable conditions would have been 
an unsatisfactory stand. At the time this planter received 
the stock, he wrote saying that a few of the trees had root- 
galls on them, and he was advised to discard them, and turn 
in an account of all such stock, that the same might be de¬ 
ducted from the nurseryman’s bill, and at the same time 
credit could be given to him; this he did not do, as he wanted 
the trees. After the buds failed to start he was told that 
the knots or galls were the cause of it all. He took the case to 
a scientific man, and he at once told him that his ground was 
ruined for future peach orchards, etc.; and on the strength 
of all this he wanted damages. The purchase price of the 
stock was about $200, but the nurseryman, finding that the 
man was unreasonable, and was being unreasonably advised, 
offered to make a settlement with him—(not on reasonable 
grounds but simply to avoid trouble and lawsuits) to give 
him several hundred dollars to settle and stop his noise. So 
confident had he become that he had a chance to get a larger 
amount as damages than he could ever possibly get out of 
peach crops, that he asked for thousands of dollars to settle. 
His lawyers encouraged him, and before the case came to a 
trial they had increased the amount to double the original 
claim. The case was tried in the home town of the planter, 
by a jury of his neighbors, and they gave him a verdict of 
about one-half the amount that the nurseryman had 
originally offered to pay him.” 
REPLACING TREES 
Editor National Nurseryman: 
In your March number of the National Nurseryman 
just received, an article over the signature of J. S. Kerr, of 
Texas, attracted my attention and was read with a great 
deal of interest. I hope every nurseryman who reads it 
(and they all ought to) will give the subject serious thought. 
Mr. Kerr takes the position in regard to replacing trees 
that fail to grow that I have had for years. I do not believe 
any man in the business is smart enough or brainy enough 
to study up a more unreasonable, foolish or nonsensical prop¬ 
osition than this thing of replacing trees free of charge. 
It is not the man who is deserving of this favor who gets 
the benefit; not the man who is thrifty and gives his trees 
and plants proper care, but the shiftless, lazy man who gets 
the benefit. It is the man who through negligence or lack of 
knowledge as to how to take care of the stock he buys 
receives these gifts of our wonderful liberality. 
I often wonder who was the originator of this custom. I 
imagine it was some one who conceived the idea that if they 
were to make this offer, they would get the business of the 
“other fellow” and soon become a “Rockefeller.” But if this 
was their idea, it did not work out as they had hoped, for the 
rest of us soon fell in line, and this left the originator no 
better off than the rest of us, but made it a losing proposi¬ 
tion for all. 
I say this scheme might have been started in this way, 
and it might have been started by the small dealer who sells 
here today and there tomorrow and is willing to replace free 
just so long as it pays him to do so. He then feels that he 
needs a change of climate; picks up his plate book and 
walks out saying to the landlord, “I will see you later,” nix. 
But no matter how this custom started, let us get together 
and stop it. Not as the Dutchman says, “Put our heads 
together and make a block pavement,” but get our heads 
together and stop the customers from making block-heads 
of us. 
I, for one, would not favor the replacing of trees only at 
regular price. I believe that half-price would be about the 
fair thing, which in time would be satisfactory to reasonable 
customers, and we all know that this we can afford to do. 
I firmly believe that we would have more trouble for the 
first year or two in getting our agents into line on this pro¬ 
position, than they would have in getting the customer to 
take it up as a fair and just proposition. 
This is not supposed to be read by the Catalogue nursery¬ 
men, only those who run agents. 
Wauwatosa, Wis. T. J. Ferguson. 
ANNUAL TRIP ABROAD 
Mr. McHutchison of McHutchison & Co., New York city, 
sailed March 30 for Europe on the steamer Lusitania. 
This is his annual trip abroad. 
