£be national IRurscryman. 
FOR GROWERS AND DEALERS IN NURSERY STOCK 
The National Nurseryman Publishing Co., Incorporated 
Vol. XXIV. ROCHESTER, N. Y., JANUARY, 1916. No. 1 
Benefits of the Reorganized American Association and 
Our Relations Thereto. 
Read before the Western Association of Nurserymen 
\ 
By J. R. May hew 
1 am led to believe, when 1 consider the subject as¬ 
signed me by your program committee, that the 
committee had in mind the benefits we can reason¬ 
ably expect from the reorganization of the American 
Association of Nurserymen, rather than that I should at¬ 
tempt to discuss the benefits which have already accrued 
from said reorganization. It would be remarkable 
were those who are responsible for the working of the 
new plans adopted at Detroit in June able to point thus 
early to any marked benefits arising therefrom, hence I 
am ready to believe that I am expected to address myself 
to the benefits the present administration hopes will re¬ 
sult because of the reorganization of the Association. 
I believe it is in the mind of every member of the 
present executive committee that they are expected to 
make a favorable and progressive report to the conven¬ 
tion which assembles next June in Milwaukee, and to 
that end the present administration is lending its energies 
assiduously. Believing that at this time the executive 
committee could well afford to consider some problems 
which confront the administration, President Welch has 
called a meeting of the executive committee to meet at 
this time in Kansas City, and I take the liberty of inviting 
every nurseryman here to offer suggestions to the exe¬ 
cutive committee if in bis mind there are problems which 
this committee should consider at this time. 
On several occasions I have urged that we be not too 
hasty in expecting results from the reorganization of less 
} lhan a year ago. Progress in all the activities of life 
is a matter of growth, of education, of much thought and 
labor. The plans as adopted at Detroit in June is a be¬ 
ginning and, if I mistake not, it will take many years of 
faithful labor on the part of our officers, coupled with the 
co-operation of the nurserymen generally, before we can 
hope for results that will be encouraging. 
One of the greatest drawbacks, if not the greatest, with 
which we will have to contend is the large number of 
nurserymen who are not. and probably never will be, 
members of the association. 1 have no idea how many 
nurserymen there are in the United States, but it is a 
well known fact that the membership of the American 
Association at this hour is less than five hundred. When 
we remember that many states alone have almost as 
many men engaged in the nursery business as there are 
members of the American Association, it gives us a 
pretty clear idea as to the point I am making. If w r e 
consider the relative number of nurserymen in any one 
state who are members of the American Association to 
the number of men engaged in the nursery business, the 
relation is small indeed. This very question is one of 
the greatest problems which confront the present admin¬ 
istration and it will confront every administration in the 
future. These people, largely farmer growers, not only 
are not in sympathy with the plans that members of this 
and other associations are striving for, but many of them 
are anagonistic thereto. To illustrate, many of you re¬ 
member that a few years ago w r e had quite an agitation, 
of the question of replacing trees that die, and 
as the result of this agitation, there w r ere 
resolutions presented and adopted by the na¬ 
tional and district organizations, also by many of the 
state organizations, condemning this vicious and assinine 
practice. These very fellows I am speaking of, guerillas 
in the truest sense, are to-day making capital out of the 
resolutions adopted by our associations condemning the 
practice of replacing, and a credulous public aids and 
abets them. I think I am not drawing on my imagination 
when I say that the plans which may find sanction of 
the executive committee of the American Association of 
Nurserymen, and which will be for the upbuilding of 
the nursery interests of America, will find strong oppo¬ 
sition from many of these so-called nurserymen over the 
country generally. What we are to do with this ele¬ 
ment is a question. 
If you will pardon a personal reference, I am endeavor¬ 
ing to establish a new r place in the city of Dallas, Texas, 
and to illustrate the character of business 1 come in con¬ 
tact with I beg to be allowed to read you an advertise¬ 
ment clipped from the paper just a day or so ago. 
(Advertisement) 
To be sure, this party has no idea of living up to his 
advertisement and is wdiolly irresponsible from almost 
