THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
101 
The National Nurseryman 
Established 1893 by C. L. YATES. Incorporated 1902 
Published monthly by 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN PUBLISHING CO., Inc. 
Hatfcoro, Pa. 
Editor .ERNEST HEMMING, Easton, Md. 
The leading trade journal issued for Growers and Dealers in 
Nursery Stocks of all kinds. It circulates throughout the 
United States, Canada and Europe. 
AWARDED THE GRAND PRIZE AT PARIS EXPOSITION, 1900 
SUBSCRIPTION RATES 
One Year in Advance .$1.50 
Foreign Subscriptions, in advance .$2.00 
Six Months .$1.00 
Advertising rates will he sent upon application. Advertisements 
should reach this office hy the 20th of the month previous to the 
date of issue. 
Payment in advance required for foreign advertisements. Drafts 
on New York or postal orders, instead of checks, are requested hy 
the Business Manager, Hathoro, Pa. 
Correspondence from all points and articles of interest to nursery¬ 
men and horticulturists are cordially solicited. 
Photographs and news notes of interest to nurserymen should he 
addressed, Editor, Easton, Md., and should he mailed to arrive 
not later than the 25th of the month. 
Entered as second-class matter June 22, 1916. at the post office at 
Hathoro, Pennsylvania, under the Act of March 3, 1879. 
Hatboro, Pa., April 1923 
NURSERY The nursery trade lacks distributors of 
DRY GOODS its products, but distributors that will sell 
to the public good plants, alive and full 
of vigor at a fair profit. 
Unfortunately department stores, ten cent stores and 
other merchandising agencies are attempting to handle 
plants which they are ill fitted to do. They are ill-fitted, 
largely because they neither have the knowledge nor 
facilities to handle and keep the plants in good condition 
while they are selling them, with tin' result that the pur¬ 
chaser very often buys plants that are dead before they 
take them away, and often at a price that is ridiculously 
below what a good article should be sold for. The result 
is that the handling of nursery products by these stores, 
under the conditions usually prevalent, really works an 
injury to the trade whereas it should be one of the most 
promising distributing agencies. 
We do not know how the practice started but should 
judge it was undertaken by the store managers without 
any real knowledge or care to supply a good article. In¬ 
variably il is only the cheap grades of plants that are 
offered and these usually much below par. due to the 
conditions in w liicb they are held pending sale. The cus¬ 
tomer is perhaps fortunate who buys the day they, are 
pul on display in the store, the late comers, who purchase 
the plants after they have been subjected to very uncon¬ 
genial conditions, becoming all dried out and worthless, 
and very often neither the salesman w ho sells them, nor 
the purchaser who buys them knows Ibis to be the case. 
A store that prides itself on its reputation should not at¬ 
tempt to handle something of which it can not give lull 
value to its patrons. 
The nursery trade as a whole has I rowned upon the 
custom, \v liich has grown in spite of it. The public seems 
to be quite willing to buy as is evidenced by the number 
of stores handling the plants in the spring. It the nur¬ 
sery trade would take hold <*f the matter, educate the 
store keepers as to w hat constituted a good grade of 
plants, teach them how to handle them and only encour¬ 
age them to handle good quality of merchandise 1 at a 
reasonable profit they would become' very important dis¬ 
tributers of the nurserymen’s goods. 
As il is at present the stores only seem to be handling 
culls and small stock at prices ridiculously low as com¬ 
pared with the eost of a good quality of stock. If the 
handling of nursery products by department and other 
stores could be brought under the pure food laws or 
whatever department of the Government looks after the 
interest of the buying public we feel very sure that the 
matter of price would take care of itself. 
A store is in business to make money, if the nursery¬ 
man is going to have the store distribute bis goods why 
not supply him with first class stock, teach him how to 
handle it and see that he can make a profit on his mer¬ 
chandise. There is a tremendous potential business in 
the handling of nursery stock by such distributing agen¬ 
cies, if it were done properly with the interest of the pur¬ 
chasers being the governing factor. 
At present the governing factor seems to be entirely a 
means of disposing of plants that can not be sold by any 
other means. 
All plants handled by department stores are not neces¬ 
sarily poor grade, some stores we have known have con¬ 
scientiously tried to give the buyer full value but due to 
ignorance and lack of facilities are unable to do so, so 
that both the purchaser and the reputation of the nursery 
trade suffers. 
TREE PUBLICITY 
William J. Flemmer, Jr., Princeton Nurseries, Prince¬ 
ton, New Jersey, writes “We are certainly getting a lot of 
publicity and a great deal of it from people not connected 
with nursery business.” 
Mr. Flemmer encloses several clippings from the press 
corroborating bis statement One of them reporting a 
very old tree in Louisiana, another one entitled “Noble 
Action Taken at Holyoke” w herein it was decided by for¬ 
mal vote in the college to abandon tbe practice of using 
cut laurel at the commencement exercises,.because it. is 
realized that unless the destruction of the wild laurel 
ceases it will soon be exterminated throughout the State. 
The article goes on to suggest that school children should 
be taught plant preservation, that wild flowers should be 
protected rather than destroyed and only plants and (low¬ 
ers that were products of cultivation from garden or 
green house should be purchased. 
It is as Mr. Flemmer suggests all these newspaper 
items have a bearing on our business il we can only 
guide them in a way that they will help to develop our 
industry. Eveiy interesting paragraph that appears in 
the daily press has a tendency to lead the mind nursery- 
ward. 
George Harris, of the wholesale department of C. R. 
Burr & Company, made a call on the trade in Geneva, 
Newark and Rochester during the past month. Mr. 
Harris sold quite a quantity of French seedlings and re¬ 
ports a good demand in other lines. 
