10 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
amount of work which the nurseryman or contractor es¬ 
timates will cost $800 in labor. He adds $200 more to it 
for supervision and profit. 
The first week lie begins to pay out wages, etc., for 
which he pays the bank 6%. Perhaps he is lucky if he 
does not have to pay more. The job drags along and he 
has not made provision about a definite time of settle¬ 
ment. How long is it before his margin of profit van¬ 
ishes? 
Or to put il in other words if there are bills receivable 
amounting to $10,000 on the books. This is costing him 
six per cent instead of producing interest if he has to go 
to the bank for his payroll. 
The employer sends his men out end charges by the 
hour or day. M ho pays for the lost time? This often 
adds to the overhead when it should be charged to the job. 
When the men are working on the nursery it is worth 
while Jo have in mind the possible maiket returns from 
the work they arc doing. If it costs a certain sum in 
labor to transplant a given number of plants, that is a 
charge against them that cannot be eliminated until they 
are sold. A little observation with this in mind will 
often reveal unprofitable work being done as a matter of 
routine. 
A good manager mentally examines every job that 
comes up for attention in its relation to cost. 
The overhead which is supposed to take care of all ex¬ 
penses that cannot be properly charged to any one else 
often is made to carry unknown heavy burdens and of 
course uses up the profits of the business. 
It takes a clever manager to distinguish between pro¬ 
fitable and unprofitable waste. 
Waste is going on all the time and is a part of the na¬ 
tural order of things. 
It is unprofitable to pay a man fifty cents an hour to 
salvage something that he cannot save more in value in 
an hour’s time than the amount of his pay. 
It is not cost in actual cash that runs away with a 
business but those intangible charges against the bus¬ 
iness that find their way into the overhead. 
RETAIL PLANTING AND SELLING 
Editor National Nurseryman, Dec. 14, 1920 
Flourtown, Penna. 
Dear Sir: 
In the November issue of the National Nurseryman 
the statement is made that those who have done much 
retail selling realize the very big handicap of planting 
and the statement is also made that hundreds more sales 
would be made if planting was part of the transaction. 
I perhaps cannot speak as one having done much Re¬ 
tail selling, but my experience, limited though it may 
have been, tells me a different story as I know that if 
the salesmen working for our organization were com¬ 
pelled to plant all the stock they sell that they would 
from necessity be compelled to cut down their sales con¬ 
siderably. 
The average nursery selling at retail through their 
salesmen have men who do nothing else but carry their 
I it lie plate book and work steadily from one year’s end 
to the other carrying the Gospel of more Fruits and 
Flowers. , , ^ 
If these men had to plant the stock they sell they 
could not cover more than one town as our experience 
is that as soon as the weather warms up in the spring 
the customers all want their stock at once and in order 
to take care of the planting the salesmen would have to 
limit his sales to his ability to plant with the result that 
instead of selling more stock for the nursery he repre¬ 
sents he would in reality sell less. 
It is stated that nurserymen can grow good stock but 
are yet to be proved good sellers. I feel that with the 
handicap of no uniform prices and cut throat compete- 
tion as has existed in the past that those who are grow¬ 
ing and selling as they are to-day are proving them¬ 
selves to be mighty good sellers. 
If however it is true that the average nurseryman is 
not a good seller the same condition holds true with the 
man who understands planting of stock but as a usual 
thing does not understand how to sell it. 
There are few dealers in lumber who feel that they 
cannot sell lumber unless they agree to do the building 
for their customer. 
Thousands of gallons of paint are sold every year and 
yet the merchant selling this does not apply it for the 
customer. 
Thousands of packages of seeds are sold every year 
and with no planting arrangement connected with it. 
No—I cannot agree that nurserymen should assume 
in addition to their present risks that of the planting of 
the stock they sell nor can I agree that the average gar¬ 
dener who knows how to plant stock can sell as much in 
the course of a year as the man who is devoting his en¬ 
tire time to the selling work. 
Practically every nurseryman in the country is will¬ 
ing to furnish explicit planting directions to his cus¬ 
tomers, in fact neaUy all catalogues carry this informa¬ 
tion and in addition to this the leading magazines before 
planting time carry detailed instructions and more of 
them would be willing to do this if requested to. 
I believe that instead of advocating that salesmen 
plant the stock they sell that this should be discouraged 
and that the customer should be encouraged to not only 
plant the stock he purchases but also to look after it 
after being planted as in a good many cases if he pur¬ 
chases with the understanding that it will be planted for 
him he gives it no attention with the result that he does 
not get the results he should. 
Proper education of our salesmen showing them how 
to sell rather than how r to plant is going to do much to 
keep up the demand for stock even though there may be 
an increased supply. 
There are thousands of homes throughout the country 
almost barren of shrubs and fruits and these offer a fer¬ 
tile field for the nursery salesman who knows how to 
sell. 
There are miles and miles of roadside where fruit or 
shade trees should be planted and in fact the nursery¬ 
men have hardly struck “pay-dirt” when we consider the 
possibilities of increasing sales to keep ahead of a nor¬ 
mal production. 
The so called tree jobber usually gives the customer 
the benefit of any special “bargain prices” he has had in 
the past, he feels that it is but a side issue with him and 
if he can sell a tree or shrub and get a few cents per 
item more than he paid for it he is perfectly happy but 
