Gbe IRatlonal IRurser^man. 
FOR GROWERS AND DEALERS IN NURSERY STOCK 
The National Nurseryman Publishing Co., Incorporated 
Vol. XXIX. HATBORO, PENNA ., JUNE 1921 Ni 
The Question of Prices 
URING the past few years we have seen prices go 
from a fairly stable basis soaring to undreamed 
of heights. We have seen practically every de¬ 
mand of labor met regardless of value received from it. 
and along with it, necessities of life and luxuries reach 
incredible prices. 
After four years of working, striving, and saving to 
win the war we saw a mad orgy of spending that main¬ 
tained war prices for two years after the war was over. 
We also came to realize that values were all out of 
gear and that a readjustment had to take place. The 
whole country came to this decision at the same time 
and practically stopped buying except those things that 
could not be done without. 
Just how long it will take for the country to get back 
to normalcy there is much difference of opinion. While 
there is every indication that the country at large is in a 
healthy, sound condition and can begin to do business in 
a prosperous manner any time it makes up its mind. 
There is no indication that boom conditions will begin in 
the near future. It rather seems that common sense is 
going to sit on the throne and future business will be 
done in a businesslike manner. 
It is quite true that the nursery business has been 
good for the past several seasons, due to causes that are 
fairly obvious mainly from the shut down during the 
war period, but this cause will gradually cease to have 
effect and our business will fall in line with general con¬ 
ditions. 
Like all other products high prices have been gotten 
for nursery stock, due to scarcity and high costs that 
entered into the production and handling. 
The question that confronts nurserymen at the present 
time is—are these prices going to be maintained or will 
there be a slump that will produce cutthroat competition 
and all the demoralizing effects that follow in its train? 
The American and other Associations have always felt 
that there ought to be close cooperation to insure the 
nurseryman getting a living wage in return for his in¬ 
vestment and labor; but if there is one rock more than 
any other that will wreck an association of nurserymen 
as a cooperative body it is the one named price. As an 
individual, if a nurseryman grows something, he feels 
he has a perfect right to set his own price regardless of 
the effect it may have upon his brother in the trade. Col¬ 
lectively, as a member of an association he looks with 
envious eyes upon corporations and individuals who are 
supposed to have a monopoly on some article of com¬ 
merce or control it in some way as to regulate the price. 
However desirable the control may be, it is an unsound 
condition that would permit it, because it will not stand 
the simple test of allowing the other fellow to have the 
same power we desire ourselves, in other words we 
would like to control the prices of the products we have 
to sell. We cannot trust the other fellow with a monoply 
of the things we have to buy. 
The one redeeming feature of the control of products, 
is, it prevents waste and if control would stop there in¬ 
stead of being used to extort the last cent out of the con¬ 
sumer’s pocket it would be a grand thing; but the 
millenium is not yet. 
The nurseryman may as well give up all thoughts of 
emulating big business such as controls oil, coal, tobacco 
and various manufactured and proprietaiy products. 
Nursery products do not lend themselves to such control. 
Any attempt to bolster up prices in an arbitrary way 
is likely to meet with failure. We know cost of produc¬ 
tion, plus a profit, should set the selling price but the cost 
of products is not the same in two different locations, nor 
necessarily the same with two nurserymen. The large 
growers can usually produce at lower cost than those 
who only grow a few, and the large growers are the men 
who usually set the price and regardless of sentiment, 
they set a price at which they think their goods will sell. 
If the item is scarce and in good demand a higher price 
is asked; if in surplus, they price with the idea of selling 
their stock regardless of what it costs to produce it be¬ 
cause they figure any price is better than the brush pile 
and a loss on one item will be made up on the gain of 
another. As long as their business shows a financial 
gain at the end of the year the profit or loss on an in¬ 
dividual item is of secondary consideration. 
This may not be good business but it is a fact that has 
a hearing on prices. 
During the last few years there has been some very 
healthy thinking on the part of nurserymen. They have 
begun to realize that even without cost data it does not 
require much intelligence to know that growing and cul¬ 
tivating a plant from five to ten years and then using two 
dollars in labor to dig and deliver it to his customer or 
the transportation company and receiving a totoal of five 
dollars for it, is not a paying prospect and he is beginning 
to reduce the number of those items he realizes he handles 
at a loss, either by getting more for them or by stopping 
handling them. 
The growers of large quantities of one item such as 
fruit trees or roses have the cost of their products down 
to a close point but even they often overlook the failures 
and other contingencies that enter into actual cost of pro¬ 
duction. There is every reason to believe that nurserymen 
the whole country over are beginning to do some profit¬ 
able thinking that will have a tendency to stop growing 
stock for the fun of it. There is also danger in the idea 
that high prices can be maintained for nursery stock, 
while the prices on other products will have to come 
down. The very nature of it forbids such expectations and 
