THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
417 
way, therefore the agent is a factor and is just one more 
medium through which business is secured. 
There is not an experienced business man who will 
not admit, when the question of credits is put up to him, 
that slackness in this respect is directly responsible for 
the wrecking of more businesses than possibly any other 
one cause. There is not a nurseryman who does not 
realize the seriousness of this one subject in the conduct 
of his business, and all of us are convinced that radical 
changes are necessary in this direction to make the bus¬ 
iness possible. 
Before approaching the subject of handling credits 
with regular customers it will do no harm to view our 
own relative positions. It is useless for us to close our 
eyes to that which is obvious to every man in the business, 
and that is that we must commence ourselves and adopt 
practices which will improve confidence in our ability to 
pay. We must necessarily patronize one another and in 
making purchases our ability to pay when the account 
falls due should be above question. The retail price 
should be maintained at all hazards, for unless it is, the 
trade arrangements between competitors are disturbed 
to such an extent that they become deranged, and the 
competitor having a surplus refuses to sell his stock for 
fear that prices will be cut. 
The financial position of the firms permanently en¬ 
gaged in the business must be improved at all hazards. 
A different understanding as to when trade accounts 
are to be settled should be arrived at, and if it is not pos¬ 
sible to pay the account when it is due then, in that event, 
interest should accrue from the due date and a note 
should be given for the obligation. No offense should 
be taken by the debtor when he is required to pay inter¬ 
est on his overdue account.. Prompt payments among 
ourselves will go a long way toward compelling us to 
demand quick settlements from our customers. Slack¬ 
ness in the matter of collections means ultimate ruin. 
There is no use denying the fact that the short period for 
selling nursery stock and the tremendous pressure un¬ 
der which business must be transacted, makes it very 
difficult indeed, except by a most rigid system, to over¬ 
come the losses which are, so to say, the natural se¬ 
quences of every nurseryman whose business dealings 
extend over a' wide territory. Agents should be given 
to understand that prompt collections are imperative. 
Promptness in the settling of nursery accounts should 
stand out like the “Rock of Gibraltar,” for it spells either 
success or failure. 
In conclusion, allow me to say that I trust in this paper 
I have presented a few thoughts for your careful reflec¬ 
tion. I realize the subject is a difficult one to handle 
and that it is impossible to cover all the ground com¬ 
pletely in a paper like this, except to the extent of calling 
attention to the salient features that arise in our business 
relations. 
According to Consul General Francis B. Keene, Zurich, 
Switzerland, there has been a decline in the production 
of grapes amounting to 56 per cent, in the acreage and 
a loss of 72 per cent, in the value of the crop from 1881 
to 1914. 
This is due (1) to the ravages of the grape louse 
Phylloera vastatrix, grape mildew, Uncenula spiralis, 
and other grape pests during the dry years, and (2) to 
hail damages, etc., during the wet years. 
Experiments have been made using the improved 
American vines as stocks which have proven very satis¬ 
factory, and are being recommended not only in places 
where the grape vines have been pulled up, because the 
grape vines were infested by the grape louse but all new 
plantings in general, so there is likely to be a demand 
for American stocks. 
SCRATCH YOUR HEAD AND THINK 
By George W. Ottinger. 
Do you consider your fall season's business profitable 
and satisfactory? If not, why? If it was, why? 
Where did you fall down and where did you make good? 
Is the expenditure side too big or too little? Whoever 
heard of expenditures being too small? Let us analyze 
what goes into expenditures. Stock—did you buy suf¬ 
ficiently and intelligently to cover the wants of your pa¬ 
trons and was that stock of such high quality as to se¬ 
cure you against loss? Labor—did you spend sufficient 
for labor that your place might be kept in the highest 
state of cultivation so as to produce the maximum in 
quality and growth? Fertilizer—did you manure 
heavily enough that next season will find the soil in good 
productive condition? Packing and Delivery—Did you 
spend sufficiently on materials and labor that your stock 
reached your customer in excellent condition and avoided 
complaints from this source? Advertising—Did you 
spend enough to let the buying public know what you 
had to sell and why they should buy from you? Office— 
Did you spend sufficient on clerical work that your bills, 
letters, etc., went out promptly and neatly and thus im¬ 
press your customers of your business ability and up- 
to-dateness? 
Did you sell too much? Who ever sold too much? 
Well how about stock that is in demand and always sells, 
did you put a large amount of effort into sales of this 
class and thus deplete your staples and leave on your 
hands stock you wanted to get rid of? Did you produce 
20 per cent, increase over normal sales by increasing 
your advertising expense 50 per cent.? Did your in¬ 
crease in sales increase your labor out of proportion? 
Did the handling of your increase in sales so Hood your 
office that it caused you to abnormally increase your 
clerical force? 
Now the gist of the matter is this, the expense account 
is severely pared and the result is production and selling 
is greatly impaired. Then on the other hand.—Sales 
are increased, desirable staples sold out and other ex¬ 
penses mount up out of proportion to what they would 
be under normal selling effort and sales. We might 
put it this way,—spend too little and get less, get too 
much and spend more. 
