Gbe IRatlona IRurseryman. 
FOR GROWERS AND DEALERS IN NURSERY STOCK 
The National Nurseryman Publishing Co., Incorporated 
Vol. XXIX. HATBORO, PENNA ., MARCH 1921 
Is Our Work as an Association for the Past Five Years to be Scrapped 
Events of the past few weeks have suggested to my 
mind the above question, and in view of the fact that I 
have given more or less thought to Association affairs 
for some years and that I believe I know pretty well the 
sentiment of the large majority of the membership, is the 
occasion of this article. 
When I retired from the presidency in 1918, having 
served the Association for practically two years as its 
chief executive, I found it incumbent to devote prac¬ 
tically every minute of my time to my own affairs, but 
there has not been an hour since our memorable meeting 
at Detroit in 1915 when I have not been willing to do 
everything within my power to further the plans 
launched at this meeting. 
To answer the question which I have already raised it 
is perhaps not out of place to review somewhat the ac¬ 
complishments of the Association during this period, 
and while this is all history we are inclined to forget 
what has been accomplished for the very simple reason 
the “mills of the gods grind slowly.” First I want to 
say that in 1915 at Detroit there was not a thinking man 
among us but who realized there was something rad¬ 
ically wrong with the nursery business, and while the 
leaders in the organization were assiduously endeavoring 
to work out some plan which would better the conditions 
of the nurserymen, another group of men had met prior 
to the opening of the convention and for several days had 
wrestled with the same problem. Therefore, as has been 
suggested several times, the minds and hearts of the men 
making up this convention were ready for a change in 
the policies of the Association. You could hear it said on 
every hand that the Association in the past had accom¬ 
plished little in a constructive way and that the time had 
come for “a launching out into the deep and a letting 
down of the net.” A committee of twelve men, of which 
I had the honor of being chairman, was appointed to sub¬ 
mit to the Association plans for reorganization, and it 
will be remembered by those who were present that the 
plans outlined were accepted by a unanimous vote of the 
convention. Let it be said right here to the credit of the 
officers of the A. A. N. that there has not been an hour 
since that day to this that has not shown progress, not¬ 
withstanding the fact that it has been equally true that a 
small minority of the membership has from that hour to 
this criticised intemperately the efforts that were being 
made. Every president and every Executive Committee 
has once a year been directed by resolution and other¬ 
wise to go forward in the work planned, and each year 
we have gone just a little further toward the goal. It 
would have been remarkable had not criticism of what is 
being attempted come, and Lome from the identical 
source to which it can be traced. The plans we have 
been working under interfere somewhat with the indiv¬ 
iduality of the membership, but it is believed, and, I take 
it, rightly, that we can afford to give up something in 
an individual way if, thereby, the whole will be bene¬ 
fited. I am well aware of the fact that in the minds of 
some of our good friends I have been classed as a 
dreamer, and perhaps there is some truth in all of this, 
but if I have had a dream it has been with an earnest 
desire that the conditions of men engaged in a like bus¬ 
iness with myself might be benefited. 
In 1915 I believe that the business was at the lowest 
ebb it has ever been since I have been engaged in the 
nursery business, and because of this fact we were per¬ 
fectly honest with ourselves and willing to accept a con¬ 
dition that was really alarming. We were willing at 
that time to go so far as to agree that the policies of a 
large number of nurserymen were wrong, ethically, and 
some of us had the courage to say so, and from that time 
to this we have been honestly and everlastingly endeavor¬ 
ing to correct many conditions which we knew were not 
right. In other words, this has been a five years of house 
cleaning, and it is but natural that our feelings have be¬ 
come somewhat ruffled in the ordeal. From time to time 
our constitution has been changed to make it possible to 
effect reforms that we all realize are necessary, until to¬ 
day it is a recognized fact that a man cannot retain mem¬ 
bership in the American Association of Nurserymen and 
do as he pleases unless he pleases to respect the rights 
of others. 
An editorial in one of the trade papers recently makes 
I he statement that in all probability the reorganizat ion in 
1915 was brought about by outside interferences, sug¬ 
gesting that certain journals were responsible for the in¬ 
auguration of this move. This is clearly an error for, 
as I have already stated, there was a feeling on the part 
ot the nurserymen everywhere that there was something 
radically wrong and a demand within our own forces to 
right that wrong if possible. It was not, therefore, from 
any outside influences that the work was launched. 
We did not proceed very far with the plans that were 
embraced in the committee’s report at Detroit before it 
became apparent that we needed an amendment to the 
constitution which would give our officers the power to 
do the things which we all recognized should be done 
and, as a result, we have Article IX of the constitution 
which someone has suggested more than once is the heart 
of the whole thing, and which I verily believe is the bone 
of contention rather than the Association’s trade mark. 
I am wondering if any member, believing that Article 
IX interferes with his personal rights, would move that 
