THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
39 
apostle Paul, of old, forgetting the things that are be¬ 
hind, let us press forward to a new mark and a higher 
calling. 
THE PONDING OF NURSERY SALESMEN 
By Theodore A. Torgeson 
Managing-Director Prairie Nurseries Ltd., Estevan, Sash. 
{Paper read at Convention of Northern Retail Nursery¬ 
men’s Association in St. Paul on Dec,. 5, 1922.) 
All salesmen should be bonded. This applies to those 
who do not handle money as well as to the salesmen who 
are authorized to make collections. The usual object 
sought in bonding is protection against money loss. I 
maintain that other results would follow general bonding 
which would be far more important. This would apply 
to all branches of salesmanship but, for purposes of this 
discussion, I will confine it to the nursery industry. 
The advance collections or pre-payment plan first 
brought the idea of bonding nursery salesmen prominent¬ 
ly before us. It is the first and most important step to¬ 
ward the general bonding of the salesmen in our indus¬ 
try. It is therefore in order to briefly review the history 
of the advance collections plan and to call attention to the 
fact that it has been so perfected that nursery companies 
can now bond their commission salesmen. 
You will remember that several years ago I gave to 
this association a detailed report on the advance collec¬ 
tions plan inaugurated by Prairie Nurseries Limited of 
Estevan, Sask., eight years ago. The plan had met with 
unqualified success in its operation in Western Canada. 
Several of you decided to try it out and at the conven¬ 
tion held a year ago heartily recommended it to the other 
members. I remember particularly that Mr. Chinberg, 
of the Hankinson Nursery reviewed the remarkable re¬ 
sults secured by his firm and strongly recommended that 
all adopt the plan. The president of our association, Mr. 
E. C. Hilborn, of the Northwest Nursery Company, had 
also tried out the plan in North Dakota and urged the 
other members to make use of it. Mr. E. M. Sherman, 
of the Sherman Nursery Co., had collected considerable 
money in advance on orders secured in Iowa and the 
neighboring states. Mr. Loss, of the Jewell Nursery, and 
Mr. Mitchell, of the Mitchell Nursery Co., also spoke of 
the satisfactory results they had secured in using the 
plan in Minnesota and elsewhere. The first press pub¬ 
licity was given the plan about one and a half years ago 
when Mr. L. J. Tucker, secretary of the Nursery Retail 
Dealers Association of America, included a review of my 
report in one of the regular bulletins of the association. 
He has given enthusiastic support to this plan at different 
times in this bulletin and while addressing gatherings of 
nurserymen. Mr. M. R. Cashman, while president of the 
American National Nurserymen’s Association, had closely 
followed our experiences and had become convinced that 
the pre-payment plan should be adopted by the entire in¬ 
dustry. He presented it at a convention of the Western 
Nurserymen’s Association held last January in Kansas 
City and this association decided to adopt it and recom¬ 
mend it to the trade. A committee consisting of Messrs. 
Paul Stark, M. R. Cashman, E. II. Ralco, C. J. Marshall 
and J. Frank Jones was selected to work out the details 
of a uniform plan. This committee secured data from 
nurseries which had already tried the plan and added 
several new features. The work of the committee, of 
which Mr. Stark was chairman, was carried on with 
exceptional thoroughness and energy. In a compara¬ 
tively short time it perfected the uniform advance collec¬ 
tions plan, made arrangements with a large bonding com¬ 
pany to bond commission nursery salesmen, issued a 
16-page booklet giving full details and sent copies to 4500 
nurserymen with recommendations that the plan be put 
into effect at once. Hundreds of nurseries adopted the 
plan as outlined by this committee. One phase of this 
committee’s work is of particular significance—it made 
arrangements so that commission nursery salesmen could 
be bonded. We had arranged five years ago with an Eng¬ 
lish company to bond our salesmen but up to the time the 
committee commenced its work no American company 
would bond commission nursery salesmen. This com¬ 
mittee has rendered a great service to the American Nur¬ 
sery industry. If any of you did not receive its report, 
I would urge you to secure it from Mr. Stark. For you 
who have already adopted the advance collection plan, 
the committee’s report will suggest additional features 
that are an aid, and for you who are operating under the 
old system, it will provide a method to place your busi¬ 
ness on a safer and more certain foundation. 
Some nurseries have adopted the system of collecting 
money through salesmen but have not placed their sales¬ 
men under surety bonds. This is a serious mistake. In 
the first place, all such nurseries should take the ordi¬ 
nary and generally accepted precaution of securing bonds 
to protect themselves against loss. In the second place, 
the bonding of such salesmen will enable these men to 
collect more money, through the public confidence in¬ 
spired by such precautions. But I go a long step further 
and recommend that nurseries which do not permit their 
salesmen to make collections should also bond their men 
and should then advertise this fact to the public. The 
cost of bonding salesman is low—$5.00 will provide suffi¬ 
cient bonds for general purposes for a salesman, under 
the arrangements made by the committee of the Western 
Nurserymen’s Association. In fact, the commission men 
should pay this cost themselves. Our salesmen have 
been bonded for the past five years and realizing the 
benefits which they derive, none have made the slight¬ 
est objections to paying for their own bonds. Rut even 
though you pay for your salesmen’s bonds, the results 
justify the expenditure—in fact the results would jus¬ 
tify the expenditure of many times the amount required. 
The main results of the general bonding of our sales¬ 
men would be (1) It would create a favorable public 
opinion. (2) It would make for more efficient salesmen. 
(3) It would protect the nurseries against loss that might 
otherwise occur. IN BRIEF, MY CONTENTION IS 
THAT THE GENERAL BONDING OF SALESMEN 
WOULD INCREASE SALES AND PROVIDE PROTEC¬ 
TION AGAINST LOSS. 
D would favorably impress the public. This is of vital 
importance in the expansion of our industry. While the 
