314 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
COST FINDING 
November 22, 1923. 
Editor of the National Nurseryman, 
Easton, Maryland. 
Dear Sir: 
Your correspondent, signing himself J. W. and, writ¬ 
ing under the head of “Cost Finding” in your November 
issue, was evidently a little confused; or perhaps lie was 
trying to confuse his readers by presenting certain 
phrases of the nursery business under the wrong head¬ 
ing. 
It is very evident he is familiar with the nursery trade 
and knows the problems which confront the nurseryman 
when he is pricing his catalog and making up his income 
tax report. His remarks are better applicable to a retail 
business than a wholesale, especially one which does a 
general nursery business including landscape work and 
planting. The actual growing of plants would he only 
a part of the business and perhaps not the most costly or 
important phase of it. It would be more important with 
such a kind of business to know the amount of overhead, 
than to know the actual cost of growing the plants. 
J. W.’s propositions or premises that he lays down are 
not sound. 
1st—“That finding cost for growing nursery stock will 
benefit nobody,” does not carry conviction. The grower 
who undertakes to grow trees or plants by contract 
surely needs to know what it is likely to cost him. The 
nurseryman who grows them himself in a wholesale way 
is surely benefited by knowing what it costs to produce 
a given number of plants in a given time. It is true 
there are lots of outside conditions that may affect the 
results hut that is neither here nor there because the 
same might happen either in the making of pig iron or 
pottery. 
Very few nurserymen will accept his first premise as 
according to the findings of practical experience in 
business. 
2nd—“That such costs can’t he found” is evidently in¬ 
correct. Such a word as “can’t” is entirely out of place. 
Very true it may not be practical, or in other words Cost 
Finding may he more expensive than the actual grow¬ 
ing of the plants, hut to say it can’t be done is really 
foolish. The railroads know the cost per ton per mile 
for moving freight in spite of storms, strikes, varying 
price of coal and numerous causes that have to be taken 
into calculation. The finding of cost in growing plants 
would neither be so intricate nor so uncertain. J. W. 
evidently belongs to the old school, which was well illus¬ 
trated at a meeting of nurserymen, where the subject of 
the price of nursery stock was under discussion. One 
member said the proper way to price nursery stock was 
to find out how much your customer had in his pocket 
and then ask the limit. The newer idea is for the nur¬ 
seryman to produce his stock so as to be able to sell it 
at a price which will encourage enormous consumption 
and enable even the poor man to possess and enjoy the 
beautiful things in nature. 
J. W. states that “a nurseryman does not sell peach 
trees, he sells peaches.” Isn’t that a rather ridiculous 
statement. It is about like saying the quarryman sells 
houses and castles, statues and works of art. I am afraid 
J. W. would be very cross if he instructed a nurseryman 
to send his lady friend a bunch of roses to take to the 
ball and she received rose bushes done up in spagnum 
moss with prickles on them. 
It is very far fetched to compare the products of Millet 
and Corot with those of the nurseryman. The artists 
had all to do with the production of their works of art. 
A nurseryman has mighty little with the production of 
things that grow; he merely cares for them and perhaps, 
in a vague way, knows the conditions under which they 
do grow, but as to the actual processes he is as ignorant 
as “the man with a hoe.” 
The nurseryman who tries to find what it costs to 
grow his products and also tries to find what his over¬ 
head is to run his business is more likely to keep out of 
the bankruptcy court than the one who merely sells in 
competition, without knowing anything about costs. 
Very truly yours, 
R. S. Y. P. 
November 6, 1923. 
Editor National Nurseryman, 
Easton, Maryland. 
Gentlemen: 
Having just received the November issue of the “Nur¬ 
seryman,” I have been interested and very much sur¬ 
prised at the first article of “cost finding.” During the 
past four years there has been a great deal of talk about 
the need for publicity, that nurserymen are not getting 
returns for their stock commensurate with the capital 
invested, the risks taken and the constant detail required 
in supervision, and the nurserymen are asked to provide 
a generous fund, and I agree that they should, to put over 
an advertising campaign that will sell goods. 
In the face of this, the article on “cost finding” seems 
to me to be the greatest waste of a page in the Nursery¬ 
man that I have ever seen. How anyone can back such 
an article and I am sorry I do not know J. W.. or how the 
“Nurseryman” can afford to print such an article at the 
head of its paper, is more than I can understand. It 
does show me that at least one nurseryman, if he is a 
nuseryman, is still willing to do business on the old 
fashioned hit and miss plan and is quite willing to grow 
stock at one dollar and sell for fifty cents if he finds that 
someone else is selling at a fifty cent price. 
Noting his two important points—first, that finding 
cost for growing nursery stock will benefit nobody, I am 
forced after reading the article, to admit that it might 
not benefit J. W., but the nurseryman who does not have 
a very good idea of the growing cost of his stock, is going 
to have his yearly balance on the wrong side of the 
ledger. Second—that such costs cannot be found—that 
depends on how close you wish to find costs. If the idea 
is that he cannot say definitely that fruit or shrubs or or¬ 
namentals cost exactly $1.13 to grow and market, I agree 
that he may be right, but I do feel that it is possible in 
