Che fflational fflurseryman. 
FOR GROWERS AND DEALERS IN NURSERY STOCK 
The National Nurseryman Publishing Co., Incorporated 
Vol, XXIV. HATBORO, PENNA., AUGUST, 1916. j 
Impressions of a Retailer Present at the 
June 1916 Convention 
By A. C. Hanson, Sales Mgr., Western Branch, The Hawks Nursery Co., Wauwatosa, Wis. 
A FTER a peaceful, uneventful sort of Rip Van 
Winkle existence for some forty odd years, the 
American Association of Nurserymen has appar¬ 
ently shaken the lethargy and dry rot which has envel¬ 
oped it and now bids fair to accomplish the things for 
which it was primarily organized. No doubt, this or¬ 
ganization has done some good work, but it lias failed 
utterly to give any protection to the largest wing of its 
membership; namely, the Retail Nurseryman. 
In spite of the prediction that the American Associa¬ 
tion of Nurserymen would fall by the wayside because 
of the adoption of a new Constitution at its 1915 meet¬ 
ing, the attendance this year was far beyond one's great¬ 
est expectations and more to the point, there was more 
real interest and activity displayed than at all previous 
meetings put together, which the writer has attended. 
At this meeting, the Retailers had at least one good 
inning. They hit the ball squarely on the nose and 
scored a few points which counted for their side. For 
many years, Retail Nurserymen (in going to and from 
these conventions) have asked themselves this question, 
“What is this Association doing for me?” It was not do¬ 
ing much or this question need not have been raised. The 
retailer has been faithful in his attendance at these meet¬ 
ings year after year; actuated by the hope that some¬ 
thing would be done sometime to relieve him from the 
evils which were threatening to ruin his business. One 
of which was the ever increasing distribution to people 
not entitled to the same, of wholesale price-lists. This 
year a real Moses in the person of Michael Gashman ap- 
peared on the scene and voiced a few truths which were 
unanswerable. That ninety-nine per cent, of the re¬ 
tailers were with him was well proven by the hearty in¬ 
dorsement given his speech and resolutions both at the 
time of presentation and after the business session. 
That the majority report offered by the committee of 
which Mr. Cashman was chairman, was not relished by 
the wholesale element present at this convention, was evi¬ 
denced by various subterfuges and parliamentary tricks 
offered in an effort to shelve the resolution. One party 
objected on the ground that it would give Czar like 
powers to the Vice-Presidents of the various states, who 
with five associates are to make up a list of all nursery¬ 
men and dealers in each state who are eligible for a 
wholesale price-list, and offered a motion that this mat¬ 
ter should be turned over to the Executive Committee. 
Did you ever stop to think who composed tlie Executive 
Committee and if six members from each state are not 
able to give an intelligent report on who is eligible to 
receive wholesale trade lists, what do you think of vest¬ 
ing this authority of power into the hands of the few who 
compose the Executive Committee. 
The great trouble with the nursery business is that 
many of the wholesalers have felt free to do just about 
as they had a mind to on the price question, loading up 
the retailer by contract early in the year and disposing 
of their surplus wherever they saw fit in most any way 
they saw fit. 
One wholesaler championed the landscape architect’s 
rights to receive wholesale lists, offering the absurd con¬ 
tention that the landscape architects and their clients 
absorbed more stock than any other element. This man 
evidently does not appreciate that all of the large whole¬ 
sale nurserymen are agreed that with the complete elim¬ 
ination of the retailer and his agents, the sale of nursery 
stock will be reduced one-half or three-fourths at least. 
How any wholesaler can in an open convention defend 
the reprehensible acts of landscape architects who use 
the wholesale price-list as a club for getting business, is 
something a retail nurseryman cannot understand. When 
landscape architects with the design they submit to a 
customer are able to attach thereto a list of from eigli- 
