178 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
ized and our name and association put before the plant¬ 
ing public, if we, the square deal fellows, are going to 
make progress and prosper. 
In our relations to the planting public, there are many 
matters pending, there will arise problems from time to 
time that require prompt action. Effective service for 
prompt detail work cannot be had without the man on 
full time and full pay. We have the wealth, have we the 
willingness? 
I hate to be a kicker, 
I generally stand for peace, 
But the wheel that does the squeaking, 
Is the wheel that gets the grease. 
One other matter I would like to call your attention to 
is that in 1925 we meet for our fiftieth annual conven¬ 
tion. It is not too early to be thinking of what an occa¬ 
sion we can make of this meeting, and officers should be 
chosen who “have the time” to make this meeting a great 
occasion for American Association of Nurserymen pub¬ 
licity. 
Four years ago I came to Chicago an unknown nur¬ 
seryman, not even knowing personally the members of 
your executive committee or officers. I am not going to 
thank anyone for my appointment as chairman of your 
Vigilance Committee for three years, but I do desire to 
express to the association my sincere appreciation of the 
honor you conferred upon me in electing me president, 
a distinction which you could have much better conferred 
upon, and which could have been more ably born by 
many others of your members—but none of whom, I as¬ 
sure you, could surpass me in saying I have enjoyed my 
four years work, and retire to join the ranks to do my bit 
as a member for an organization that can do much to¬ 
wards making America more fruitful and beautiful. 
REPORT OF THE MARKET DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE 
COVERING ACTIVITIES FOR 1922-23 
Gentlemen, once again the members of your Market Develop¬ 
ment Committee come before you to make a report of what 
has been done with the work entrusted to them. 
That work is, of course, primarily “developing markets”— 
developing the markets which absolutely must be developed if 
they are to absorb your ever-increasing production and if you 
are to continue in a healthy state of business. 
It has been the history of every successful industry in this 
country that, as production increased, an ever increasing amount 
of effort had to be put into the systematic creating of a demand 
for the products of that industry. 
To me, it seems that there can be no shadow of a doubt that 
the nursery industry, as an industry, must, during the next few 
years, give more attention to creating a nation-wide demand for 
its products than it has ever done before. 
The work of the Market Development Committee is, I repeat, 
primarily to develop markets. 
But for the last few years, and especially during the past year, 
there has been added other things—things equally important, but 
not in any sense of the word market development matters. These 
things we have been glad to do, but to make our report as com¬ 
prehensive as possible, I am going to try to give you a picture 
of what has been done in each separate field, dividing this report 
for this purpose under the four following headings: 
1. General Publicity. 
2. Advertising and Publicity Service to Association Members. 
3. Membership Campaign. 
4. Organization and Miscellaneous Matters. 
GENERAL PUBLICITY 
Let us first take up the subject of publicity. Before reporting 
in detail w T hat was done last year, let us, to get a proper pros¬ 
pective, go back a few years so that you can see what is being 
done now compared to what was being done several years ago. 
In fact, the first work of the old market development organiza¬ 
tion, which was then, as you will remember, separate from the 
American Association of Nurserymen and supported by funds 
contributed by individuals, started this work. 
Now there is one peculiar thing that you, of course, have 
noticed about newspaper psycology — the average newspaper 
wants to talk about the same things that every other newspaper 
in the country is talking about, and at the same time. 
If the mummied remains of poor old “Tut” are dragged forth 
to the light of day after having slept peacefully for several cen¬ 
turies, that fact may be given two paragraphs on an inside page 
and pass unnoticed. But if it happens to be featured on the 
front page of enough newspapers for one day, then that is the 
signal for every newspaper, large and small, over the entire 
country to “play it up” as a feature every day thereafter as long 
as it has “news value.” 
When the old original market development organization began 
its work, articles about plants and planting were not “news.” 
So far as we know the only planting articles that have ever 
been syndicated up to this time w r as the series sent out on home 
gardens and vegetables for the W. Atlee Burpee Company. The 
newspapers were rather slow to use these, suspecting “a nigger 
in the woodpile,” particularly as they were sent out by an in¬ 
dividual firm. 
When we began to use the same idea in the nursery campaign 
and the articles were sent out by an association rather than by 
an individual firm, we were, of course, in a much better position 
to get this kind of material used. Even us, however, the replies 
we got back from the first return postal cards sent out to our 
newspaper list back in 1917, shows that only 13% of those who 
replied made the statement that they were using the material and 
would like to have it sent to them in the future. A great many 
replied that they were not printing any “free advertising” and 
requested us either politely or otherwise not to send them any 
more. 
The returns from a similar inquiry sent out during the last 
year showed that over 7 OV 2 of those who replied said that they 
were making use of the articles and they would like to receive the 
remainder of the series. So you can see what a decided change 
there has been in the attitude of the newspapers towards the use 
of this kind of material. This has been due, partly, we believe, 
to the fact that we have taken care always to supply the sort 
of thing which had some real value to the reader, and is always 
presented from the reader’s point of view, rather than from the 
nurserymen’s. 
In order to check up as far as possible on the number of articles 
being used, we employed the services of two clipping bureaus for 
six months, beginning with November. Through this service we 
received about 1400 articles and from other sources, 700. 
The fact that there was practically no duplication in these 
clippings showed that the clipping girls were not getting, by all 
means, all of this material. This was particularly true of course, 
of the smaller papers which constitute the majority of those 
using our service. 
The information which we can gather from all sources leads us 
to believe that more than 10,000 articles have been used during 
the past year. We believe this to be a very conservative estimate. 
As the total cost of these articles was about $3700, the cost per 
article amounted to 37 cents for each article used. Practically 
every article was used in its entirety, occupying an average of 
two-thirds of a column to a full column. This amount of space 
could not have been purchased for many thousands of dollars. 
Along with this, too, there has been a tremendous growth in 
the interest in planting and gardening in this country, which is 
the cause and which, the effect, it would be impossible to say— 
like the old problem as to which comes first, the chicken or 
the egg? 
Be that as it may, the fact remains that during the last two 
years there has been probably a greater interest on the part of 
the general public in planting than in the preceding twenty 
years. The various garden and horticultural publications have 
increased their circulation as never before, and several new ones 
have sprung up. The daily papers are giving an ever-increasing 
amount of space to planting and particularly to home beautifica¬ 
tion. 
In addition to this, several other organizations have been sup¬ 
plying the press regularly with articles which directly or indi¬ 
rectly cannot fail to help increase the demand for the nursery¬ 
man’s product. 
One of these which you all know—and which incidentally 
everyone of you should help support—is the “Plan to Plant 
Another Tree” movement so ably and energetically conducted by 
our friend, Mr. J. A. Young, of Aurora. This movement was 
given splendid financial assistance by our Executive Committee, 
which donated $2000. 
