142 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
sion. Many of the professions are required to take up 
licenses after passing rigid examinations. Among such 
are Doctors, Dentists, Lawyers, Insurance Companies, Ar¬ 
chitects, Engineers, Plumbers and others. Industries such 
as the packing industries are rigidly inspected and then 
licensed for the benefit of the public. 
In the case of the banks the government safeguards the 
public’s deposits; in the case of investments, the public’s 
investments; and in insurance, the government practical¬ 
ly guarantees that the assured is protected from loss and 
that the beneficiary will certainly receive payment. In 
the case of the packers, the object of government protec¬ 
tion is the wholesomeness of the product. They have to 
ceitify as to the health of the animal slaughtered, and to 
the sanitary conditions under which it was packed. In 
fact, every manufacturer of food commodities operates 
under the pure food laws of the United States. 
Now the question arises as to what protection the pur¬ 
chaser is entitled to against possible abuses in the nurs¬ 
ery business. 
(1) lie is entitled to the assurance that he is getting 
the variety of plant which he orders. 
(2) He is entitled to be safeguarded against receiving 
plants that are diseased or infested with insect 
pests. 
(3) He is entitled to receive plants furnished with suf¬ 
ficient roots and which are handled with sufficient 
care to make them grow. 
Certain States have passed laws intended to safeguard 
the purchaser in the particulars just mentioned, but the 
framers of those laws in their eagerness to protect the 
public, made them so drastic for the nurserymen, that 
they are unable to operate under them. 
Now it is believed that if the nurserymen in one of 
their own associations could furnish ample protection to 
the public, such drastic laws would not be made in the 
future, and that those now on the statute books might be 
annulled; and what is of greater importance, the confi¬ 
dence of the public would be strengthened, and the plant¬ 
ing of trees would greatly increase. 
How shall we as nurserymen accomplish this. As the 
conditions are national and not local, it seems to me that 
it ought to be dealt with nationally and not locally. We 
are all members—or at least should be—of both our State 
association and our National Association. I therefore be¬ 
lieve that the Illinois Association of Nurserymen ought 
not to enter this work, but that we ought to heartily sup¬ 
port such a movement for this purpose which is already 
being discussed in the National Association. 
A suggestion has been made that the National Associa¬ 
tion certify to the genuineness of every purchase from 
any of its members, and to this I would add that it certi¬ 
fies that it will return money back for any plant sold 
which is not true to name, or which is diseased in any 
way, or has insufficient roots. 
It might be objected that the association would be in¬ 
volving itself in a very large financial obligation to so 
certify the sales of its members; and I agree that it ought 
not to undertake this responsibility without previously 
having received a bond from each of its members, to make 
good any loss which may be incurred by the association 
on his business. If this is done, there ought not to be 
any great danger in making the experiment, and certainly 
a national body could exploit by means of publicity cam¬ 
paign, this service to the public, in such a way that each 
member will receive full benefit from it. This can be 
done by the national body at far less expense than if each 
individual nurseryman attempted to do it for himself. 
It has been objected that certifying to the genuineness 
of all sales would be a boon to the crooks in the nursery 
business at the expense of the honest nurserymen. This 
objection is partly met by the bond which I suggest the 
national body should require from each of its members 
to indemnify it against loss, but supervision should not 
end there. The officers of the association know full well 
who the crooks are, and as there are very few of them, 
would be able to give them special supervision. If they 
continue to abuse the good name of the association they 
could be dropped from membership. The mere dropping 
from membership, however, would not effect much if 
such outlaw concerns were able to buy stock from our 
members: so there would probably have to be an agree¬ 
ment such as exists in many other trades, to sell stock at 
wholesale prices to firms of good standing only. This 
agreement being on the face of it for the benefit of the 
public and not for the sake of profiteering, I feel sure 
would be endorsed by our government. It is in line with 
the best practice in many other industries which have 
had to contend with similar conditions, and it would thus 
make our industry thoroughly respected and put it on a 
firm business basis. 
Until I was assigned this subject, I was not aware that 
it had been suggested that the certifying of nursery stock 
should be done by a State organization. I cannot think 
of any argument in favor of a State organization under¬ 
taking this service and there are many obvious reasons 
why it could not serve as well as a national organization. 
The object desired is to enforce square dealing, and to 
assure to the public that it will receive a square deal. In 
other words, we wish to reinstate all nurserymen into 
the good opinion of the public ; and it is no advantage to 
us to have all Illinois Nurserymen on the square, if 
crooks from other States come in, and by bad practices 
bring discredit upon the industry. We wish to accom¬ 
plish a nation wide reform and in order to do so it must be 
done by a national association. 
The whole object of the plan suggested above is to fix 
definitely the responsibility for certain acts on the.right 
persons, and it is readily admitted that this is a difficult 
thing to do. It may be that the whole scheme is impos¬ 
sible to carry out because of the difficulties involved; if 
so, some other plan must be devised. If no plan on this 
or similar lines can be found, we must fall back on gov¬ 
ernment supervision. I would suggest that we do not 
wait until such supervision is thrust upon us, but instead 
devise a law which will accomplish the purpose of pro¬ 
tecting the consumer and at the same time develop and 
strengthen the nursery industry. 
Common sense tells us that the laws controlling other 
industries must have been drawn up by parties who knew 
all the details of the business to be controlled. For in¬ 
stance, laws on banking must have been drawn up by 
bankers, laws on insurance by insurance men, etc., and 
these industries have flourished more since laws were 
passed than in the old days of wild cat banking. 
It matters little if we have to change our mode of doing 
