38 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
a former day could furnish us with many such stories. 
Now I have come to the point that I wish to put across. 
We nurserymen need the confidence of the public in the 
new era that is at hand. There is opening up before us 
a tremendous growth of business. The public is in a 
mood to be educated. In every city and on every farm 
there is a chance to create new markets and greater 
dmands. A few years back, landscape gardening was 
about as well known as histology. A home planned by 
an architect was a rare exception. Block after block 
showed nothing but bare foundations with a peony or 
a lilac hush alone in the front sod. Today this is chang¬ 
ing; almost every home owner has accepted the idea that 
his grounds should be properly planned and planted. We 
are passing into the same change through which the 
building trade went some years back. Many of you can 
remember how, when one built his house, he consulted 
the carpenter and with a pencil and paper they planned 
the rooms, stairways, etc., and the carpenter worked from 
his penciled plan. No one would think of building a 
modern house today without assistance from the archi¬ 
tect, and the public mind is approaching the same atti¬ 
tude toward home grounds, streets and parks. 
Ideas catch and spread rapidly today. A short time 
ago the tourist park was something new, but how rapidly 
the idea swept the country and in what a short time 
every little hamlet had provided its tourist park. Some¬ 
thing like this idea will prevail toward the city park 
and shortly no village will be too small to have its public 
park and playgrounds, and the home yard unplanted will 
be conspicuous. 
I repealt that the public is in a mood to be educated and 
in the great majority of cases the nursery salesman is 
to be the teacher. For this reason, we need to merit 
and retain the confidence and the goodwill of the public 
as never before. If a firm ever could afford to have a 
“Carrie Gooseberry” salesman, that time is now past 
Our whole problem today is to plan our business from 
the viewpoint of the modern corporation with a large 
business organization to develop and maintain, relying 
upon repeat orders from every territory. 
If we all see clearly that the nursery salesman is to 
be the teacher in this developing field of beautifying and 
landscape gardening, it follows that he is to be a trained 
man. We can no longer afford to send our contract or 
an outfit to anyone who may apply. There are a few 
outstanding qualities that a salesman should have before 
representing any reputable firm in the field. First of 
all, he should be reliable and a credit to the firm. The 
public pictures the firm through its representative. Next, 
he should be familiar with his trees and shrubs, know 
their habits of growth, their season of bloom, and the 
effects to be secured by the different varieties. He must 
also know and not guess, the proper methods of planting 
and care. Further, he must possess the fundamentals 
of landscape gardening. Although he may not be an 
artist, he should be able to render reasonably good ama¬ 
teur services in working out foundation planting, back¬ 
grounds, borders, etc., etc. Only by a knowledge of these 
things is he able to gain the confidence of the customer, 
plan the large order and bring it back to his firm. Only 
through his ability to render such services in a worthy 
manner, can the trade of his house develop and grow 
in a community. 
It follows from all this that the salesman must be a 
man of ability and character and on a plane with the 
salesman of any of the better wholesale houses. We 
cannot afford to make the investment of this training in 
a low grade man. A force of such trained salesmen as 
I have pictured will create demands for a tremendous 
quantity of ornamental stock and will bring back to their 
firm large and profitable orders. But let us not forget 
that public confidence is the basis on which this large 
business is to be built. Whenever a tree agent of the 
old school gets in a piece of dirty work, memories of by¬ 
gone practices will arise, like Banquo’s ghost to plague 
us. Therefore, fellow nurserymen, the time has come 
when I am concerned with your business and you are 
concerned with mine; instead of being jealous of your 
business, I must be jealous for your good name and you 
for mine. The agent who would tear down and destroy 
public confidence in the nurserymen is the enemy of all, 
regardless of for whom he works. We must stand 
shoulder to shoulder to create confidence and goodwill 
toward the nursery work as a business. Should you 
hear of any bad work of an agent of the Northwest Nur¬ 
sery Company it is your place to advise us promptly, and 
we should be grateful, and we take it that you want the 
same service rendered in return. Through this larger 
co-operation and better understanding we will secure 
greater increases in our business than in any other line 
of which I know. 
I want to tell you men, that we are entering a new 
moral era in the business world, not alone in the nursery 
business, but in every line. The old school of the horse 
trader which flourished a decade ago is gone; their slo¬ 
gan, “Let the buyer beware,” is no longer popular. That 
old school of business getting, with its standards and 
practices, is passing. In every city throughout the busi¬ 
ness world there is a Rotary Club, kiwanis Club, Lions 
Club—and what are these leaders in business talking 
about? Not how to get bigger profits, but they are 
preaching “service before self,” square deals and hon¬ 
orable relations. There is nothing new about this, it is 
simply applied Christianity, but the new thing is that 
business men listen to it weekly, are interested, and re¬ 
spond to its emotions. Therefore the public is yearly be¬ 
coming critical and more exacting—more ready to trust 
and more ready to blame. 
So there was never a time when we needed to draw 
closer together than today. . 
We need to use the association and to guard its good 
name to further our common cause. The nursery busi¬ 
ness is one of the noblest in which men can engage. The 
very work of growing interesting plants, planning for the 
beautification of homes and countrysides, develops the 
finest that is in men. Large numbers of splendid men 
whose names have honored our business profession have 
been inspired by the idealism inherent in our business 
We may well indeed be proud of our work and desire to 
see our children enlist in our cause. So let us go for¬ 
ward with firmness and pride, secure in the thought that 
we are to enjoy the confidence of the public. Like the 
