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THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
The National Nurseryman 
Established 1893 by C. L. YATES. Incorporated 1902 
Published monthly by 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN PUBLISHING CO., Inc. 
Hatboro, Pa. 
Editor .... 
.ERNEST HEMMING, Flourtown, 
Pa. 
The leading' 
Nursery 
trade journal issued for Growers and Dealers 
Stocks of all kinds. It circulates throughout the 
United States, Canada and Europe. 
in 
AWARDED THE GRAND PRIZE AT PARIS EXPOSITION , 1900 
SUBSCRIPTION RATES 
One Year in Advance .$1.00 
Six Months .75 
Foreign Subscriptions, in advance .$1.50 
Six Months .$1.00 
Advertising rates will be sent upon application. Advertisements 
should reach this office by the 20th of the month previous to the date 
of issue. 
Payment in advance required for foreign advertisements. Drafts 
on New York or postal orders, instead of checks, are requested by the 
Business Manager, Hatboro, Pa. 
Correspondence from all points and articles of interest to nursery¬ 
men and horticulturists are cordially solicited. 
Photographs and news notes of interest to nurserymen should be 
addressed, Editor, Ilourtown, Pa., and should be mailed to arrive not 
later than the 25th of the month. 
Entered as second-class matter June 22, 1916, at the post office at 
Hatboro, Pennsylvania, under the Act of March 3, 1879. 
Hatboro, Penna., September, 1916. 
On a separate page we publish a cir- 
PUBLISHING cular letter from the office of the Sec- 
ASSESSMENTS retary of the National Association of 
Nurserymen, in which it is proposed 
to publish the amount that each member has assessed 
himself under the new rules. 
We doubt very much if such action would be advis¬ 
able or even attain the desired end. Even if it did it 
would not be good business ethics, as such information 
should be held confidential and if published would work 
an injustice to some of the members. 
Those who have paid the full amount of their assess¬ 
ment may not wish to have it published and it would be 
very unfair to them. 
The Federal Government considers income assessments 
confidential as do also trade commissions and the Exe¬ 
cutive Committee should be guided by a rather fine 
sense of the propriety in such matters. 
When this new method of raising funds to carry on 
the work of the Association was proposed, it did not 
meet with unanimous approval but the members evidently 
wished to give the new management an opportunity to 
test out their ideas, and it would be a pity to do anything 
that would be detrimental to the good work that is being 
done. 
The assessments are voluntarily made and it is hardly 
courteous to publish the amount with a view of question¬ 
ing a man's honesty. Even if this view is not implied 
by the proposal, the amount of business he does is his 
own private affair. 
The Association should not take,itself too seriously if 
it cannot attain its ends by voluntary support, any at¬ 
tempt at coercion will be sure to meet with failure. 
The word hardiness is perhaps the most 
HARDINESS misleading word the nurseryman has to 
contend with. He describes a plant 
as being hardy in the proper meaning of 
the term, but is very often interpreted by the customer 
in a very different way to that he intended. The average 
person seems to think that if a plant is described as 
hardy it will stand all sorts of conditions and abuse and 
if it fails in the winter they immediately think the nur¬ 
seryman has misrepresented it. Every plant grower 
knows that the term when applied to a plant means, that 
given the proper conditions it is hardy enough to stand 
the cold in a given locality, but the term may be equally 
well applied to heat, drought, fungus, or any other con¬ 
dition that may have a bearing on the welfare of a plant. 
It is a well known fact that as many garden plants suc¬ 
cumb to summer conditions as do to winter conditions or 
severe cold and very often a plant will fail in the winter 
in the latitude of Philadelphia, while it will come through 
uninjured in the latitude of Boston. 
Every plant has its own particular isothermal line 
which more or less governs its geographical limit when 
growing wild. This can very often be extended when 
brought under artificial conditions and properly cared for. 
A very good illustration of hardiness may be observed 
in the well known California Privet. This plant is say 
quite hardy as far north as New York, yet it is a well 
known fact that it will get winter killed in much more 
southern localities, especially if it is planted in heavy or 
undrained soil. Ripening of the wood has a very im¬ 
portant bearing on hardiness. If a plant continues to 
grow until very late in the fall the chances are that the 
branches will lie tender and get killed back, whereas if 
the wood thoroughly ripens up before frost it will remain 
sound to the tips even during the most severe weather. 
Severe winter killing may be always expected after 
late warm fall that keeps the sap moving. 
The word adaptability is really a much better term to 
use in connection with plants. The trailing arbutus is 
hardy enough as far as cold is concerned but how many 
succeed with it under cultivation. The same is true of 
the American Holly even in localities where it grows 
wild it is not an easy plant to bring under cultivation. 
These two are extreme cases but the same is true to a 
greater or less degree in all plants. 
THE LARGEST SASSAFRAS 
Reading in The Gardener’s Chronicle of America an 
article on the largest shade trees, we were very much 
surprised to note that the largest Sassafras in America 
is growing within a very few miles from the office of 
I he National Nurseryman, and we of course promptly 
paid it a visit. 
The tree is growing in an old burying ground at Hors¬ 
ham, Penna., and is 15 feet 10 inches in circumference 
at four feet from the ground. Unfortunately nothing 
remains of the tree but the trunk with one fair sized 
branch, still in vigorous growth. The trunk is hollow 
and shows signs of great age, and the size was certainly 
a revelation for this kind of a tree. How often it is 
that we have at our own back doors as it were, things 
that are unusual and wonderful and not know anything 
about them. 
