THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
13 
say to you that I believe when this is accomplished you 
and I will have been gathered to our fathers many years, 
but I am also led to hope the work we have inaugurated 
will be carried on after we have passed away. Through 
this campaign of publicity not only will methods that are 
unfair and shyster he exposed, hut planting will be stim¬ 
ulated. therefore the demand for our products will be 
Increased. Just what plans will best serve our purpose 
in this matter and at this time is probably open to dis¬ 
cussion. It is a settled fact in my own mind, however, 
that the executive committee can at this time well afford 
to engage the services of an expert publicity man who 
shall, under the direction of the executive committee, 
keep favorably before the reading public the nursery 
interests of America. I believe that the money so ex¬ 
pended would be the best money your officers could 
spend and that the resutls would, in every sense, be sat¬ 
isfactory. I therefore say to you without hesitancy 
that one of the benefits to be derived from the reorganized 
American Association of Nurserymen is that of an ag¬ 
gressive campaign for publicity. 
Another benefit, the results of which are already ap¬ 
parent, is that of improved conditions relative to unfair 
legislation. We are at this time as not heretofore pre¬ 
pared to defend ourselves against unfair legislation and, 
furthermore, to prosecute to completion plans in¬ 
augurated some time since looking to uniform legislation 
within the United States. Heretofore it has been im¬ 
possible to accomplish the best along this line because of 
lack of funds to handle this important work, but with the 
increased fees made possible under the reorganized plans 
it is hoped this difficulty has been removed. In this con¬ 
nection, not only for your own good but on behalf of the 
committee on legislation, I want to insist that you use 
the sendees of the general attorney of the American As¬ 
sociation of Nurserymen, which will cost you not one 
cent. This attorney’s services are at your disposal any 
day in the year and the success of the legislative com¬ 
mittee’s plans demand that the services which they have 
provided shall be utilized. There is but one reason, to 
my mind, why this contract with Mr. Smith will not 
prove a profitable investment on the part of the Amer¬ 
ican Association, and that is the refusal on the part of 
the members to use the services provided. Some time 
since in endeavoring to straighten out some matters rela¬ 
tive to the Oklahoma law. I had occasion to call Mr. 
Smith into conference, and he rendered me very valuable 
assistance in all matters intrusted to him. I want to 
again urge every member of the American Association 
to avail himself of the splendid services of our general 
attorney whenever the necessity arises. 
Another of the benefits which will come to the or¬ 
ganized nursery interests by reason of the plans adopted 
at Detroit is solidarity of purpose. To-day as not here¬ 
tofore in the history of the association the organization 
is truly representative of the nursery interests of Amer¬ 
ica, and not only is this true but it is the organizations 
of the country. It is a well known fact, and I say this 
without criticism of any of the other organizations, that 
in the multiplicity of organizations there is strong prob¬ 
ability of jealousies and resultant conflict. To-day as 
not heretofore in the history of our business, we look to 
the American Association of Nurserymen for initiative 
and for guidance in all matters—as the one organization 
where all of our interests merge, and to all other district 
and state organizations as auxiliary to the American As¬ 
sociation. I think this position is correct and because 
we happen to live in the South or the West is little reason 
why our aim should be to make our particular organiza¬ 
tion separate from rather than auxiliary to one big rep¬ 
resentative association. 
In rewriting the constitution and by-laws of the Amer¬ 
ican Association at Detroit, then, the aim of the com¬ 
mittee of twelve was to make this Association so entirely 
representative of the nursery interests of the United 
States that there would not in the future be occasion for 
jealousies, and no occasion for conflict. These, to my 
mind, are some of the benefits that have, to some extent 
already, and which will in the future accrue to the nur¬ 
sery interests by reason of the reorganized American As¬ 
sociation. 
Our relations as Western Association of Nurserymen 
are, as I have already stated, correlative. The leading 
nurserymen of the Western Association, those who have 
been responsible for ils existence in the past and those 
who will be responsible for its existence in the future, 
are also members of the American Association, and, I 
take it, are in hearty accord with the plans inaugurated 
last June at Detroit. The same thing is true of the 
Southern Association, and is largely true of all state or¬ 
ganizations. This being the situation, I can see no rea¬ 
son why it should not be the aim of this and all other 
auxiliary organizations to make the American Associa¬ 
tion of Nurserymen first in its affections. As the matter 
now stands, to further illustrate, the majority of officers 
of the American Association are members of the Western 
Association, hence I take it that we, as a Western Asso¬ 
ciation. have to-day not only a great interest in what the 
present administration hopes to accomplish but. because 
of this fact, we have a greater pride in the American As¬ 
sociation than we could have otherwise. Our relation, 
then, as Western Association of Nurserymen, is to con¬ 
tribute of our money and our time toward working out 
the plans that have been and which will be inaugurated, 
realizing that the benefits which will accrue to the mem¬ 
bers of the Western Association will be greater than 
would be possible to hope for otherwise. The Western 
Association has in the past, and will continue in the fu¬ 
ture to render valuable service to the nursery interests of 
the great west and southwest. The same thing is true 
of the Southern Association and of our numerous state 
organizations, but it is not too much to expect that all of 
these different organizations will fall squarely into line 
with the plans inaugurated at Detroit and endeavor, by 
every known means, to make the American Association 
of Nurserymen the most effective, efficient organization 
possible. Any other position we might take would 
smack of sectionalism, and nurserymen are too big to al¬ 
low any feeling of sectionalism to creep into their affairs. 
T\ese. gentlemen, are some of the benefits T feel we 
have reason to expect from the reorganization of the 
American Association of Nurserymen, and these are our 
relations thereto. 
