THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
309 
wholesaler or entirely through the retailer. But should 
the retailer he eliminated, every nurseryman knows that 
the business will he reduecd to at least one-quarter of its 
present volume. 75 per cent of the nursery stock sold 
north of the Mason and Dixon line is disposed of through 
the traveling salesman. We must either protect the 
traveling salesman, or he must he eliminated from the 
lield. No one will question this argument for it is not 
reasonable to believe that any prospective customer will 
pay $5.00 per dozen for trees to an agent when he can, by 
spending a two-cent stamp, buy them from the whole¬ 
saler at $1.00 per dozen plus the freight and wrapping. 
The only argument that the wholesaler puts up against 
this point is that all of the buyers do not know that they 
can buy their trees at wholesale and that in this lield 
there is business for the retailer. 1 ask 'How long will 
such a field be fruitful?” The answer is “No longer 
than it will require for the wholesaler to discover the bus¬ 
iness and he will he there with his wholesale price list.” 
At the Milwaukee Convention the writer, as Chairman 
of the Committee on “Who is Entitled to Wholesale Trade 
Lists” made an effort to bring before the Convention a 
plan that would in a measure curtail the widespread dis¬ 
tribution of wholesale surplus lists. My plan of allow¬ 
ing six nurserymen in each state with the Vice President 
as Chairman to furnish a list of nurserymen entitled to 
trade lists in their state met with strong opposition from 
the wholesalers present. Fortunately the retailers were 
strong enough to adopt this plan and the executive hoard 
was instructed to put it into operaion. It is to be seen 
whether the wholesalers will follow the instructions of 
the Convention. The opinion of many of the retailers at 
the present time is that the action taken at the Convention 
would not bring the desired result without some effective 
weapon to enforce it. 
Would it not he the part of wisdom for the retailers of 
the United States to organize a purely retail Association 
with headquarters in some central west city, say Chicago, 
where yearly meetings could be held and the retail bus¬ 
iness thoroughly organized. I notice that in all other 
lines of business, the retailers have their associations 
while the wholesalers have theirs. A combination of 
the two cannot result in very much benefit to either side. 
If the retailers have their own organization, regulations 
can be made that will in a measure protect their business. 
The big wholesalers certainly respect the trade given 
them by the retailers, but if no protest is made, we can¬ 
not blame them for disposing of their stock through any 
avenue that is open to them. A protest in itself is in¬ 
effectual unless hacked by an organization of business 
men banded together for mutual protection. The re¬ 
tailers should have such an organization. 
A National Retail Nurserymen’s Association would be 
beneficial in a great many ways. We are sadly in need 
of an effective Collection Bureau and this could be main¬ 
tained at headquarters at less than half that the various 
nurserymen are paying for collecting their accounts 
through local attorneys and Commercial Collection 
Agencies. A National Retail Association, is, so far as I 
can see, a splendid solution to this whole question. 
Now, it is evident from the various comments that have 
been made, that many of those engaged in allied trades 
did not understand the intent of the resolution adopted 
at the Milwaukee Convention. I wish to say that the 
Retailers have no desire whatever to eliminate from the 
trade any concern or individual actively engaged in the 
sale and distribution of nursery stock to the consumer. 
Florists, dealers, growers ,and retailers, alike, if buying 
nursery stock to re-sell are surely entitled to wholesale 
lists. But we do not propose to recognize competition 
that uses cheap nursery stock to draw trade to stores 
where other lines of merchandise is the principal stock. 
Neither do we intend to recognize as nurserymen or com¬ 
petitors, landscape gardeners who use as their argument 
in securing contracts that they can buy all their stock 
for planting at wholesale and who actually do submit 
wholesale lists to their clients who pay for their goods" 
direct on a wholesale basis. The landscape gardener 
does not act as the agent of the nursery. On the other 
hand, he has declared that the planter for whom he does 
the work is his client and he acts as his agent. Why 
should he be entitled to a wholesale list any more than 
the planter himself if he wrote for it direct? The land¬ 
scape gardener is one of the big thorns in the side of the 
retail nurseryman. He does the job for a client, supplies 
the stock at wholesale, while the next-dobr-neighbor, 
buying his stock at retail, considers, after seeing what 
his neighbor pays for his goods, that he has been robbed 
and this is the sort of sentiment that is being engendered 
toward the nursery trade in general. To these people 
the nursery business looks like a graft and when a com¬ 
parison of prices is made, the nurseryman himself can 
hardly believe that he is engaged in an honorable bus¬ 
iness. 
The landscape gardener is surely not entitled to any 
cheaper prices than any other buyer and he should be 
considered as being in exactly the same position as tin; 
building architect, who, we all know, is not able to buy 
lumber, brick, concrete or other material at wholesale 
prices. 
Every nurseryman is interested in as large a sale of 
general nursery stock as possible and if we are to save 
the business, the traveling solicitor must be protected in 
the same manner as commercial drummers are protected 
by every other line of business. This is a vast country 
and the traveling solicitor in all lines of trade is the most 
effectual avenue through which all goods are sold. If 
we must have the traveling solicitor, we want the highest 
type of character to represent our business. Does any¬ 
one think that a man of good sound judgment and hon¬ 
orable principles would consider engaging in a business 
where he is required to ask from 100 per cent, to 300 per 
cent more for his goods than the customer can secure 
them for by simply spending a two-cent stamp? The 
wholesale price list is driving out £ffl high class solicitors 
and many nurserymen are compelled to employ the 
trickster and crook to dispose of their goods. 
There are many angles from which this question could 
be argued, but this article is already too long. 1 trust 
that the nurserymen who read your paper will give us 
some sort of an expression on this question. What do 
the Retail Nurserymen want? Are we strong enough to 
organize and protect our business, or shall we submit to 
the destroying agencies of the wholesale price list? 
