THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
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44 
Relation Between the Nurseryman and Landscape Architect 
By William Harry Kessler. Read at the Atlanta Meeting of the Southern Nurserymens 
Association , August 29 — 30, 1916 
Mr. Chairman and members of the Southern Nurserymens Association:— 
Y OUR Secretary has honored me by putting me on 
your program to address this convention, and 
he has considerately left it to me to select a 
topic about which I might feel reasonably sure of myself, 
and that might prove more or less interesting to all of 
you. I presume that you will be interested in hearing 
a few words spoken with reference to the relation be¬ 
tween the nurseryman and the landscape architect, and 
how their relations may be so shaped as to create the 
greatest good fellowship and mutual profit. 
Just here I wish to impress upon you that while we are 
both in the business for good business reasons, we must 
not overlook the fact that we are particularly concerned 
in the improvement of the looks of things in this world, 
and as we have this responsibility resting on us, we 
should use the opportunity to carry on this work of im¬ 
provement in the best possible and most efficient manner. 
We will really be doing a good work and adding to the at¬ 
tractiveness of the places in which we live, as well as in¬ 
creasing the pleasures of our fellowmen by so doing. 
Then we have at least done a laudable work whether or 
not we manage to get rich at it. 
I have heard it mentioned several times that their exists 
a flavor of antagonism between some nurserymen and 
landscape arcitects, and I have endeavored to find out the 
reason for this feeling, if it really exists, and a way in 
which this antagonism may be overcome. 
I think that I am fairly well qualified to express an 
opinion on the subject as I have been engaged in both oc¬ 
cupations for a good number of years; first I was in the 
nursery business with the P. J. Berckman’s Company for 
about, ten years, later took up the practice of landscape 
architecture for them and myself, and still retain an 
active interest in nursery work. 
During the course of this experience, I have come in 
contact with a great number of nurserymen and land¬ 
scape architects and am quite familiar with their differ¬ 
ent methods of doing business with each other and their 
clients. 
Now I cannot see why the relationship existing between 
the nurseryman and landscape architect should be other 
than strong and friendly and more close than it has been, 
redounding to the mutual benefit of all parties concern¬ 
ed. I believe that with a little better understanding and 
regulating of business transactions that such will come 
to pass. 
The landscape architect has probably put him¬ 
self in a bad light with the nurseryman by presuming 
that all nurserymen are generally unacquainted with the 
principles of landscape design, and know plants only for 
their individual commercial beauty and worth, also 
by their insistence that the nurseryman shall sell his pro¬ 
ducts to their clients at dealer’s wholesale prices. 
On the other hand, the nurseryman has, in some in¬ 
stances, antagonized the landscape architect by insinuat¬ 
ing to the latter's client that there is nothing to the work 
of the landscape architect that cannot be undertaken by 
any good horticulturist, while the landscape architect 
may know how to draw interesting pictures, he certainly 
does not know all he ought to about plants, where they 
will grow, etc., etc. 
The nature of the two occupations, that of the land¬ 
scape architect and that of the nurseryman, are so differ¬ 
ent in their chief aims that it is very difficult for a nur¬ 
seryman to become a landscape designer, and vice verse. 
I say this advisedly, for I have had the experience 
of metamorphising from one to the other and know just 
how long and how difficult it w as for me to lose the view 
point of the nurseryman. 
The difference of viewpoint is this—the nur¬ 
seryman is always striving to produce, origin¬ 
ate and sell plants of exceptional novelty, peculiar in¬ 
dividual excellence and perfection of form and growth, 
he therefore puts comparatively little worth in un¬ 
cultivated, unimproved natural varieties and forms. He 
is always concentrating his attention on the individual 
plant and wishes to display it to its best advantage in its 
highest type of cultivation. 
This aim is so thoroughly inculcated throughout his 
experience, as a nurseryman, that it becomes a steadfast 
habit with him, whenever he arranges plants in public 
and private grounds it so influences his work that the re¬ 
sult is generally the opposite of that which is striven for 
by the landscape architect, when he is attempting to 
produce a naturalistic planting. The difference 
being that the whole planting arrangement, its 
scale and mass is seriously affected by the tendency 
to lose sight of the harmony of form, texture and color of 
the mass by the desire to display the particular excellence 
of individual specimens. 
Then again he is apt to place specimens on 
exhibition when there is little reason for them 
being included in the design, for it should be under¬ 
stood that the successful planting arrangement is that 
which contains trees, shrubs and plants, that when plant¬ 
ed either as individual specimens or in group formation, 
serve some definite object in the composition—that is, 
modify a harsh angle in the building, prevent a too rapid 
transition from house foundation to lawn surface, screen 
from view some objectionable feature, frame a good 
vista, create a shade accent or form a suitable back¬ 
ground, or some other definite artistic purpose. 
As some of you may not know just how a landscape 
architect works, and might be led to a better understand¬ 
ing by a short outlining of his methods, I will attempt to 
describe in a concise way the requirements of the work. 
First, after consulting with the property owner, on the 
ground, he makes a topographical survey and map of the 
property to be improved, showing by this map the loca¬ 
tion of existing features, such as trees, bounding streets, 
