THEJNATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
447 
SELLING METHODS 
Stanley V. Wilcox 
The majority of retail sales, and this applies particularly 
to ornamentals, are made thro salesmen or agents who know 
or should know trees and plants very intimately. The great 
bulk of these sales are made upon the recommendations of 
these men. 
The majority of property owners know very little about 
nursery stock and usually rely on some one to suggest to them 
the best selection for their individual needs. If this is done 
carefully and the results are satisfactory it is only logical to 
look for continuous music. 
Now right here is where many nurser>nnen fall down. 
Acting imder the impulse to secure just as many agents as 
possible, many men are employed who have not the ex¬ 
perience to make the right suggestions. Bad results follow 
which means of course no more business from that quarter. 
Pick up almost any newspaper in our large cities and you 
will find advertisements for nursery salesmen—"Experience 
unnecessary.” Surely if there is one business that demands 
a salesman should have a knowledge of his product, this is the 
one. There is no need of rehearsing the many familiar stories 
of wonderful plants offered and sold by the "tree agent” and 
it is not fair to the trade in general that such methods should 
still be in favor. 
An effort should be made, therefore, to improve our selling 
methods along this line in particular. 
A well organized selling force of experienced salesmen 
would be the ideal solution and some firms have attempted 
this in a small way and very successfully. 
Where the business does not warrant such an organization, 
the local agent is the next consideration. 
Should we not hold more closely to the old rule of "a few 
good rather than a great many poor.” Select such agents 
carefully. If you have a good line—why not a good agent? 
Houses in other lines of business usually find good men and 
not infrequently the better the product the better the new. 
Keep this in mind as you employ agents from time to time. 
Where are such men to be had? There is hardly a com¬ 
munity that does not have one or two men who would make 
high class representatives. Interest the local florist more. 
He comes closely in touch with the flower and plant loving 
public and would be the very man to represent a first-class 
nursery. 
Many retired gardeners would be glad of the opportunity 
to represent a nursery in the community where they live. 
No one knowingly chooses a poor agent when a better one 
is to be had. The idea is to look the territory over carefully 
with the view to getting the right man, and better more than 
a representative who will misrepresent and all that this 
implies. 
Once you get a good agent, keep him by working with him 
on good prospects. Follow up his inquiries—be liberal with 
literature and make the man feel he is a part of the organiza¬ 
tion and not working as an individual. 
National Nurseryman Publishing Co.: 
Find check to cover advertising for October and November. Same 
is proving very satisfactory indeed. Gray’s Nursery. 
DUTY ON ROSA RUGOSA 
It is to be hoped that the question of the proper duty on 
Rosa rugosa and rugosa alba will be settled for all time by 
the decision of the General Board of Appraisers, in the case of 
McHutchison & Co., who protested an assessment of four 
cents each, which the appraiser had assessed on an importa¬ 
tion of these plants. 
The case was heard before the General Board of Ap¬ 
praisers last Spring. McHutchison & Co., called the late 
Prof. John Craig and Thomas B. Meehan as experts, both of 
whom testified-that Rosa rugosa, rubra and alba were not 
commercially" known as "rose bushes” but as "nunsery 
stock.” 
The decision of the Board handed down Nov. yth, upholds 
this evidence, and rules that the plants should be assessed as 
"nursery stock” and duty levied at twenty-five per cent ad 
valorum. 
As this question has been before the Board several times 
and various decisions have been rendered, the present case is 
of great interest to nurserymen, and we are, therefore, quoting 
the full text of this last ruling. 
"30439— Rosa Rugosa Seedlings, Shrubs, Nursery 
Stock —Protest 558799 of McHutchison & Co. (New 
York): 
"Waite, General Appraiser: . The classification of a kind 
of plant or shrub described and invoiced as ‘Rosa Rugosa’ is 
here in question. It has been assessed at the rate of four 
cents per plant under the provision in paragraph 264, tariff 
act of 1909, for the ‘rose plants, budded, grafted, or grown 
on their own roots.’ Protestants claim duty should be levied 
at the rate of 25 per cent, ad valorem under the same para¬ 
graph. The paragraph reads as follows: 
"264. Stocks, cuttings or seedlings of Myrobolan plum, 
Mahaleb or Mazzard cherry, Manetti, multiflora and briar 
roses, three years old or less, one dollar per thousand plants; 
stocks, cuttings, or seedlings of pear, apple, quince, and the 
Saint Julein plum, three years old or less, two dollars per 
thousand plants: rose plants, budded, grafted, or grown on 
their own roots, four cents each; stocks, cuttings and seedling 
of all fruits and ornamental trees, deciduous and evergreen 
shrubs and vines, and all trees, shrubs and plants, and vines 
commonly known as nursery or greenhouse stock, not 
specially provided for in this section, twenty-five per centum 
ad valorem. 
"Considerable testimony has been taken in this case, from 
which it appears that these Rosa rugosa plants in question 
were produced from seeds, that they are over three years old, 
and that they are not commercially included within the term 
‘rose plants.’ The testimony further shows that Rosa 
rugosa is commonly known as nursery stock, and is used for 
landscape purposes, ‘massing, grouping, planting for hedges, 
on account of its hardiness and general adaptability to out¬ 
door conditions,’ that it is not commercially grown for its 
bloom, its single white and red blossoms lasting only for a 
short season; that it is principally cultivated for its attrac¬ 
tive foliage. The several witnesses agree that rose plants 
which are grown for their bloom are never propagated from 
seed, for the reason that they do not come true to type; that 
the commercial method of producing such plants is by bud¬ 
ding, grafting, or from cuttings or slips, this last-mentioned 
method being described in paragraph 264 by the phrase 
‘grown on their own roots.’ 
"The board has in several cases dealt with the question of 
the classification of Rosa rugosa. In G. A. 4635 (T. D. 21922) 
it was held that a species of briar rose known as Rosa rugosa, 
which had been grown from seed, was properly dutiable under 
paragraph 252, tariff act of 1897, as a briar rose, and not as a 
rose plant budded, grafted, or grown on its own roots. (See 
also G. A. 7284; T. D. 319310,) The law of 1897 (par. 252) 
