48 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
help to us and we appreciate it very much. 
It is fine to have a tree planting week, and work up the 
idea in each community, to help enthuse each home own¬ 
er. In this way he is brought face to face with the sub¬ 
ject in such a way that he is almost sure to "Plan to 
Plant Another Tree,” and then many more trees. It de¬ 
velops into a systematized planting or a form of organized 
planting that makes for greater success. 
There is a great future for this work. No one can 
deny the good of planting more trees, or of the necessity 
of such planting. No one will deny the value, the use¬ 
fulness, the beauty, and the restful ness of properly se¬ 
lected trees. There is one point on which we especially 
need education, and that is to plant more trees. Not one 
home in fifty has enough trees growing around it. Near¬ 
ly everyone believes in planting trees, but they do not 
believe it strong enough. It is so easy to put it off, or 
do it with lack of thoroughness. It is along this line that 
we need more training in tree planting. 
I feel like it should be the aim and purpose of each of 
us, each home owner, to do all, and everything we can 
to promote the idea of planting more trees. There is 
nothing nobler or more beautiful to which we can turn 
our attention and efforts. Therefore, let us resolve anew 
not only to “Plan to Plant Another Tree,” but to help 
at all times to influence others to adopt the idea and to 
live up to it. 
THE AIM OF THE NURSERY TRADE 
By Ernest Hemming 
General Manager of the Canterbury Nurseries, 
Easton, Mot. 
Head Before the Meeting of the Illinois Slate Nursery¬ 
men s Association, January 12, 1923 
Mr. President. Ladies and Gentlemen of the 
Illinois State Nurserymen’s Association 
When I received the letter from your Secretary, Mr. 
Young, asking me to come to Chicago and address this 
meeting I immediately decided it was out of the question 
for a number of reasons. Among them were: My own 
business affairs would not permit of it. I was never 
much of a success at public speaking and there were un¬ 
doubtedly nurserymen in Illinois far more able than I. 
When I reread the letter with a view to dictating a re¬ 
ply. expressing regrets that I should be unable to be 
present, no excuse I could think of rang true. If I did 
not come I should either appear as uninterested or a 
slacker. 
That letter read as if it took for granted I was coming, 
stating a room in the hotel had been engaged, transpor¬ 
tation arranged for, etc., and was characteristic of the 
Illinois State Nurserymen’s Association. It goes ahead 
and does things, and has the happy faculty of making 
others feel like slackers, if they do not do their bit for 
the good of the trade. 
The reason Mr. Young picked on me I think was be¬ 
cause. in my spare moments I try to edit a paper. I 
think he overlooked the fact that I was born in England 
and you know an Englishman’s mental processes func¬ 
tion very slowly, also that I am a nurseryman and out¬ 
side of a Nursery, their mental processes often don’t 
function at all. 
Editing a Nursery Trade paper does however make you 
think, you must read and hear and pass judgment on 
everyone’s opinion and it forces you to take an interest 
in other nursery businesses, besides your own. It makes 
a co-op out of you all right. 
Having earned my bread and butter as a practical 
nurseryman for the past twenty-five years a good part of 
that time being engaged in selling to the consumer, it 
can be taken for granted I have few illusions about the 
business but more enthusiasm and confidence in its fu¬ 
ture than I ever had. 
Co-operation I believe is the theme of this convention. 
Refore saying anything about it, I should like to say 
something about laws, not the kind that prevents you 
from having a drink or shipping nursery stock without a 
license, but the laws that were put in operation by the 
Almighty, in the beginning. 
The world has discovered many of these laws, but it 
still sins greatly in not profiting by them. You may call 
them natural laws, laws of morality or psychology, you 
may call them what you like but you can not side step 
them as easily as those on the statute books. Because 
unless you are working in harmony with them they simp¬ 
ly won’t function, and you fail to accomplish. 
Let us see how these laws work in connection with co¬ 
operation among nurserymen. Each nursery is a unit, 
essentially selfish working under the law of survival of 
the fittest. A Nurseryman must first look after his own 
business, unless things are alright and prosperous at 
home he is in no position to co-operate in things that only 
benefit him indirectly and in the perhaps distant future. 
So a common policy based on equity to all is essential to 
secure co-operation. Anything that favors the wholesal¬ 
er and does not benefit the retailer or favors one section 
of the country and not another, that is fixed to benefit 
the big fellow and ignores the little fellow will not pro¬ 
duce co-operation. 
The Aim of the Nursery Trade 
Now what is the aim of the Nursery Trade? I doubt 
if a clean cut platform, that is practical, or program that 
all branches of the trade can enthusiastically endorse 
has yet been conceived. At least it has not had publicity 
enough to make it known. 
The average nurseryman has a vague idea that if we 
get a slogan and advertise it, that it will increase con¬ 
sumption so that he can sell all he raises at high prices, 
do away with the brush pile and be prosperous. 
That is a pipe dream. Those laws I mentioned don’t 
work that way so it is very important the trade have a 
practical aim that all can subscribe to and work hard 
for its success. 
What does the economic law, so far as has been dis¬ 
covered. say about price, supply and demand. I think 
you will find it something like this—Assuming publicity 
has been sufficient to arouse the interest and create a de¬ 
sire in the buying public for our goods. A high price 
limits the consumption, as the price is lowered consump- 
l ion increases until a point is reached when further re¬ 
ductions have no effect, except to demoralize the market. 
We are all old enough to have seen the rose of the auto¬ 
mobile industry and to have noted the greatest measure 
