THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
179 
Then there is the American Tree Association behind the ac 
tivities of which is to be found a man to whom every nursery¬ 
man in this country owes a great debt—Charles Lathrop Pack. 
Most of you probably know the plan under which Mr. Pack is 
conducting his work; that is to give a membership in the Ameri¬ 
can Tree Association to everybody who plants a tree, provided 
they have the tree recorded and registered in the American Tree 
Association. There are no other dues. 
The American Tree Association reports in one county in Illinois 
alone—Winnabago county—17,500 memberships among pupils in 
the public schools. Like the “Plant to Plant Another Tree” 
movement, the American Tree Association makes a particular 
effort to work with Chambers of Commerce, Women’s Clubs, Ro¬ 
tary Clubs, Lions and Kiwanis Clubs. Personally, I would like to 
make the suggestion right now to whoever may be chair¬ 
man of next year’s program committee, that the effort be made 
to have Mr. Pack, who is an excellent speaker, give a talk at next 
year’s convention. The effort was made to get Mr. Pack this year, 
but press of business made it impossible for him to accept our 
invitation. 
The Federal Department of Agriculture and the various state 
departments have been more active this year than ever before 
in sending out publicity material to the newspapers and all of 
this, of course, helps. 
Probably, every member of this association knows that certain 
enthusiastic members of the women’s clubs finally succeeded in 
having adopted a “National Planting Week.” This received a 
great deal of attention in the general press and, although this 
was the first year planting week has been in force, the stimulat¬ 
ing effect which it had was felt everywhere this past spring. 
It is very fortunate for the nursery industry that they can 
have material of this kind so helpful to their business sent to 
the newspapers of the country from half a dozen different 
sources, as it is. The more there is sent in this way, the more 
will be used. All signs at present indicate that next year will 
see the greatest campaign for tree planting and for home beau¬ 
tifying that the country has ever seen—one which will outdis¬ 
tance by far even the wonderful record of the past year. 
NEWSPAPER CUTS 
When the electrotype cuts of the slogan were sent out to the 
members of the American Association, we assumed that a num¬ 
ber of these would be sent back and we thought that a good way 
to use these would be to offer them to the newspapers making 
use of our articles, although we were rather doubtful as to how 
many of the newspapers would take up this proposition as it 
was much more like giving the nurserymen free advertising than 
was the case in using the reader articles. 
In this connection, our first surprise came with the fact that we 
got hardly any of the cuts back from the members of the asso¬ 
ciation. Out of 350 cuts sent out, only thirteen were returned. 
Our second surprise was from the newspapers. So many re¬ 
quests for the cuts came back that we had to send out to news¬ 
papers a total of 400 of the slogan cuts, carrying the messages 
“It’s Not a Home ’Till It’s Planted” and “It’s Not a Farm Home 
Without Fruit,” so without any cost to the association, except 
the actual cost of the electros, they are being published in 
hundreds of newspapers, reaching hundreds of thousands of pros¬ 
pective customers, planting the seed for future business. 
LANTERN SLIDES 
Another indication of the increased interest in planting has 
been the remarkable demand which we have had for the associa¬ 
tion colored lantern slides, illustrations, landscape planting and 
individual plants. This set of slides has not been in our office 
over two days at a time from early September up to June 19th. 
In a number of cases, we had to wire the firm which was using 
them to send them on directly to the next person who wanted 
them. We feel that, in addition to the set of landscape slides 
which we already have, it would be worth while for this coming 
year to have a set of orchard and fruit tree slides made up, and 
also an additional set of the landscape slides. I believe it would 
be possible to have all three sets busy most of the time from early 
autumn until the following midsummer. 
PUBLICITY AND ADVERTISING SERVICE TO MEMBERS 
OF A. A. N. 
So much for the general publicity work which has been carried 
on. We come now to the publicity and advertising service which 
has been supplied by the National Planning Service direct to 
members of the American Association. The general idea back of 
this work has been, I think, most concisely put in one of Presi 
dent Paul’s many good slogans, “Plan to Plant Publicity.’ 
What President Paul meant by this particular one of his many 
Pomona preachments was to have every members of the associa¬ 
tion get back of the publicity idea and do everything he could 
to spread it as an individual in addition to what the association 
was doing as an association; and along w'ith this, to have the 
association help the individual in spreading publicity in every 
way possible. 
It seemed to your committee that one of the things needed for 
this work was a slogan which should embody the argument for 
planting in the briefest and most catchy phrase that could be 
found. This was a hard nut to crack. After many weeks of 
correspondence, discussion in the columns of the booster and 
trade papers, and several meetings of the members of the Mar¬ 
ket Development Committee who lived near enough to get to¬ 
gether, the slogan “It’s Not a Home ’Till It’s Planted” was de¬ 
cided upon as being the one which gave the possible prospective 
user of nursery stock a real reason why he should plant a few 
woods. 
There are several factors which make particularly difficult 
the procuring of an effective slogan for the nurserymen’s pro¬ 
ducts. 
In the first place, there are many different types of things to 
cover. The paint manufacturers can sell “paint”, the florists 
can sell “flowers,” but the nurserymen cannot sell either trees, 
shrubs, plants or fruits alone without leaving a vide part of the 
field uncovered. 
In the second place, while paint, or hollow-tile, or some par¬ 
ticular kind of lumber, or Sunkist oranges, are the same in Maine 
or Florida, California or Delaware, on the other hand, the prod¬ 
ucts of the nurserymen vary greatly both geographically and 
seasonably. 
This, of course, greatly increases the difficulty of boiling down 
the nursery selling argument to anything so condensed as a slo¬ 
gan should be. It makes it practically impossible to use a slo¬ 
gan which mentions any particular kind or even kinds, of nursery 
products. 
WHAT A SLOGAN SHOULD BE 
But that does not necessarily make impossible the finding 
and the use of a slogan which will, if sufficiently backed up and 
pushed by those in the trade, help greatly in extending the mar¬ 
ket for nursery products. 
If you analyze the purpose and the accomplishment of some of 
the most successful slogans which have been used, you will find 
that their work has not been accomplished by directly urging 
people to use some particular product. On the contrary, what 
the successful slogans have done is to plant a suggestion that will 
ultimately stimulate the increased use of the products to which 
they are attached. 
We have emphasized the word suggestion because its import¬ 
ance is too often not realized outside of those who have made a 
study of the business of selling. Suggestion has come to be 
known as absolutely the most potent factor in selling. Half of 
the things you buy and use have been sold to you through the 
medium of suggestion —usually without you realizing it. 
WHAT HAS THE NURSERYMAN GOT TO SELL? 
The answer which first comes to mind of course is “trees, 
shrubs, plants.” 
But I say that this is not what the nurseryman has got to 
sell. What he has got to sell is not trees, shrubs and plants, 
but an IDEA—the idea that planting is an essential to the mod¬ 
ern home, as is good plumbing, or heating or music in the home. 
Sell that idea —and the sale of trees, shrubs and plants must 
follow as the fruit follows the blossom or growth follows ger¬ 
mination. 
SLOGANS MUST HAVE WIDE SCOPE 
Any slogan designed for use by those engaged in an industry 
which is as diversified in its products as the nursery industry, is, 
must of course, be very broad in scope. It is to my mind imposs¬ 
ible to attempt to designate all of the various kinds of things 
which must be covered. I believe it is a mistake to designate 
any of them because if some are mentioned and others are not, 
some part of the field from which the harvest is to be reaped will 
be left uncultivated. 
The slogan which has been selected by the Market Development 
Committee, after a great deal of consideration and correspond¬ 
ence, does cover the entire field. It suggests the use of all kinds 
of planting material, not any particular line. It applies to^ all 
sections of the country, and to any season of the year. What 
is to be planted will depend naturally upon the kind of a home 
it is that is to be planted—whether it is a small suburban lot, 
a good-size country place, or a farm home where wind-breaks 
and a fruit orchard would be as much a part of the planting 
which should be done as would ornamentals for the suburban 
lot. 
Moreover this slogan has the distinct advantage of tying up 
directly with what is now and will be the biggest “market de¬ 
veloper” we will have for many years to come that is the 
present building program which is being put into effect all o\er 
the country. It lends itself to use by landscape architects, by 
