t 62 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
are good. There are two roads, the Dansville and Mt. 
Morris railroad and the Delaware and Lackawanna. Most 
of the larger firms have sidings on the D. and M., while the 
freight rates to western points are advantageous, in that they 
are the same as from Rochester. 
Much stock is grown on contract, doing away with storing 
in the winter, but there are four large modern storage plants. 
LEADING FIRMS 
THE GEORGE A. SWEET NURSERY COMPANY 
Long and Favorably Known 
The George A. Sweet Nursery Co., one of the larger 
companies in Dansville, established in 1869, has built up a 
large wholesale and retail trade in fruit trees. In the retail 
trade the cash with order is followed closely, and no agents 
being employed, the well printed catalogue and advertising 
are relied upon to secure business. The dealers are generally 
preferring retail trade to wholesale trade in Dansville, and 
the reason is seen in the fact that the retailer need not make 
himself dependent upon a few men, but can rely upon 
multitudes for his trade. 
i •. 
Fashions in Fruits 
There are about 170 acres in fruit. Apples are a specialty, 
with stress laid upon the popular red varieties, the McIntosh 
and the Baldwin, and also upon the Greening. The Mc¬ 
Intosh seems to have Sprpng into sudden demand, and the 
nurseryman finds himself unable to cope with the situation. 
There has also been a strong demand for the Montmorency 
and the Morello cherries this spring. In the sweet cherries, 
the Windsor for the black and the Napoleon for the white 
have proven leaders. In plums, two year old Burbanks 
held well to the fore. Of the other fruits, no special varieties 
were emphasized. A few ornamentals are raised, of which 
the poplar is most prominent. 
Careful attention is paid to the grading of all these trees 
in four grades with a special heavier grade for city and 
suburban trade, in which New England is the greatest buyer. 
Storage 
A storage house, a large frame structure 100 feet square, 
is part of the winter equipment of the firm. It has a shed 
roof, lighted by sky lights, which are darkened in the winter, 
and is frost proof, constructed as it is of boards with paper 
between them and three or four air spaces. The stock is 
well arranged, stacked in bundles which reach up to the 
ceiling, and forming alleys between the stacks. The roots 
are well covered with two layers of excelsior, the inner wet, 
the outer dry to absorb the moisture and prevent mildew. 
The building is lighted by electricity, has no artificial heat, 
and is supplied with city water. Mr. Sweet, when he 
observed his well stocked store house, could not but be 
reminded of the good old days, just fifteen years ago, when 
all the stock was heeled and trenched in the field and dug out 
in the spring—a thing never practiced nowadays. 
A fumigating house is attached to the storage house, but 
fumigation is not practiced except at the request of the 
customer, because San Josd scale does not exist in that region. 
About the house packing boxes were being made, while in 
a work house six men were trimming French imported apple 
stock. Necessity, the mother of invention, evidently lives 
in Dansville; for we find a machine here, devised by Mr. 
George C. vSweet, which is known as a willow twister and 
which is used to tie knots in willow stems. These are used 
to tie up the bundles of roots. 
Mr. Sweet expressed himself as being proud of the way the 
state was running things in the nursery inspection depart¬ 
ment and hoped that “honest men and true” would continue 
to serve under the new commissioner. 
MOREY & SON 
Morey 8 c Son is an old nursery firm of Dansville, 
started in 1863, formerly strictly wholesale but lately branch¬ 
ing out into the retail catalogue business, as so many Dans¬ 
ville firms have done. It comprises 200 acres in nursery 
stock. 
Fruit trees are dealt in entirely and these are shipped in 
car load lots as well as in box orders. The specialties are 
plums and cherries. The latter are principally on Mahaleb 
stock, because the Mazzard has proven a failure. There has 
been a great demand for Morello and Montmorency cherries 
all over the country, and this has been due to the great 
money making qualities of these two varieties. The Burbank 
and the Japanese plums have been very good sellers, and as 
many as 80,000 Japs were sold to the South and the West 
last year. The shortage of the red varieties of apples has 
been felt here as everywhere else—the McIntosh was at a 
premium. 
Everything is budded in the field except the apples, 
which are grafted in the winter on French stock bought and 
graded in France. The labor in the grafting room is special¬ 
ized, six men grafting and two winding, and the results of 
their joint labor stored over the winter in large boxes filled 
with sawdust. 
Large storage facilities are required by the business, and a 
100 feet square and about 20 feet high storage house has been 
built. The light is gotten by means of rows of windows, 
a saw tooth roof with six teeth. There are disadvantages 
with this roof, in that it is hard for the water to drain off. 
The stock of over 200,000 trees is ridged up to the roof, 
with very narrow alleys between the ridges, and very closely 
packed. Two layers of excelsior cover the roots of the trees. 
The lower layer is moist excelsior, while the outer, thicker 
layer is dry and is for the purpose of absorbing moisture and 
preventing mildew. The whole sides of the alleys form a 
steep excelsior wall, and this is in keeping with Mr. Morey’s 
belief that the more packing used the better will the plants 
keep. At the side of the well ordered stock is a packing 
space, in which a charcoal stove is allowed to smoulder in 
the very cold weather. Electric lights are conveniently 
placed, while another modern improvement is a derrick, 
which moves the large packing boxes from any part of the 
floor to the door, leading directly into the freight car on the 
private siding. Running water from hydrants scattered at 
central points is a great protection in case of fire. We can 
see from these appliances how up to date the modern storage 
plant is. 
