THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
76 s 
“GINGER” AND ITS DEFINITIONS 
In using the word “Ginger” I do not mean to treat this 
commodity as a commercial product and tell you how the 
Chinese prepare same in the preserved form for human 
consumption, neither will I tell you its virtues from a 
druggist’s standpoint and point out it wonderful qualities 
in making cramps and other stomach disturbances 
“vamoose.” 
Ginger commercially, when properly prepared, will 
stand on its own merits when it is either preserved by the 
“Chink” or Chinese process or brewed into a liquid by 
some manufacturing chemist. Almost everyone has seen 
and digested preserved ginger, which as an article of diet in 
the form of a relish or dessert, will hold its own with a large, 
round, custard pie, a.bowl of prunes, a tapioca pudding or 
a hunk of strawberry short cake as a final wind-up to a 
hearty meal. 
The ginger as I express and mean it, represents vim and 
dogged persistency in building up your nursery business on 
a substantial basis. 
“Ginger” also represents most anything pertaining to 
building up a good, substantial business. Promptness in 
answering enquiries, being wide awake and having the 
faculty of increasing your sales. Plenty of “Ginger” 
when this word is stamped in your make-up makes every 
nursery mana winner. “Ginger” means reliability, honesty 
and a desire to live and let live; at the same keeps one 
always in front of the procession. Keep abreast of the 
times, study conditions and try to fulfill everything that is 
required in order to make your concern or personal interests 
the top notch of perfection. The greatest fault I find with 
the average nurseryman is not answering his mail promptly. 
Very often letters are pigeon-holed and answered at leisure. 
I have adopted the plan when circulating Surplus Stock 
lists to advise prospective buyers when they order in 
quantities of 100 trees and over, and 500 grape vines for 
instance, to wire in their orders at our expense. This 
facilitates matters especially when the nursery shipping 
season is advanced and time means money. The average 
worded telegram ranges in tollage from forty cents to one. 
dollar and if this is an important adjunct for gaining busi¬ 
ness why not adopt this method. It is cheaper in the 
long run, prevents delays, keeps your packing force busy at 
all times and gives your office a business air when the 
telegraph messenger makes frequent visits. How many 
nurserymen can tell from day to day how long a certain 
variety of nursery stock will still be in surplus? W hen a 
letter is written quoting a certain variety of stock how are 
we to know if this variety will still be in surplus when the 
matter is taken up by correspondence? There is a general 
disappointment all around when a nurseryman is short of a 
certain variety and he orders same from another nursery¬ 
man fully expecting to get same, to be told finally, after 
waiting for several days or perhaps a week or more, that 
the stock has been sold. I do not mean to infer that it is 
practical to answer all enquiries by telegram. Judgment 
must be used in all cases, but where a nurseryman has a 
surplus of any nursery stock and a presumably bona-fide 
enquiry is made, I usually adopt the plan to get after the 
prospective buyer with a wire' and I make the wire or 
telegram as hot as possible in order to land the business. 
This is what I call “Ginger.” Be alive and equal to all 
occasions and if you are prompt in all business matters 
nine times in ten, you will land the business and head off 
some dilatory nurseryman. Always be the first one to get 
your answer back to your enquirer and use your best 
judgment as to whether you will use a letter to do it or a 
telegram. 
l“ Ginger” also means keeping abreast of the times 
regarding new varieties. I do not believe in fads that 
require too much energy in trying to put on the market 
'certain novelties that have not been tested. 
I have never sold a new variety of novelty until I was 
compelled to go into detail, explain its virtues and if I 
finally made a sale of it, the party would say, “I will try 
one.” I believe in confining the growing end of one’s 
business to propagating standard commercial sorts,— 
those that are known to be money makers. An experi¬ 
mental orchard on the side might be a good method to 
adopt to ascertain if a new variey of fruit will hold up to 
the wonderful merits given it by the originator. When 
growing family orchards it is not so necessary to the buyer, 
whether he makes a blunder in getting a certain tree which 
has been touted as a money-maker, but when you come 
down to growing fruit as a money-making investment any 
experiment on a large scale very often proves a dead loss 
and the grower has regrets that he did not confine himself 
to growing some well known, tested sort. During the past 
few years almost every catalogue issued by a nurseryman 
proclaims the discovery of some new variety of fruit. 
They crack it up strong, but when it is tried out in a com¬ 
mercial way, it falls down and proves to be not quite as 
good as some already tested commercial sort. In many 
instances the sensational variety is given a “Hair Cut” and 
worked over to something reliable. All this causes loss of 
time and money. Charles A. Chambers. 
ROOT KNOT EXPERIENCE 
I have just returned from my orchard where I planted 
in the spring of 1901 those two year apple trees which were 
affected with the Root-Knot—(or what the professors 
pronounced Root-Gall,) and I found the trees growing and 
in a very healthy r condition, and in every way highly satis¬ 
factory, perfect specimens of health, well shaped, vigorous 
growing apple trees—writes Chas. C. Bell of Boonville, Mo., 
to President Stark recently. 
The history of these trees is briefly as follows:—In 
December, 1900, they were two years old and stood in my 
private nursery, raised for my own planting. There were 
several thousand and while from all appearance they were a 
healthy looking lot of trees, yet most of them were more or 
less affected with the root-knot (or what I years ago, as a 
boy, used to know as root-wards, and hence did not see 
much harm in it). But as I was going to the annual meet¬ 
ing of the State Horticultural Society at Farmington, Mo., 
December 4, 5, and 6th, I took several of the trees with me 
