238 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
Everything else is easy but the most important thing 
about it is the most difficult thing. If you think it can’t 
he done, just take a week off and travel with one of your 
plate-hook agents. He can give you selling points about 
your business that you never knew before. 
Most advertisers of nursery stock recognize that diffi¬ 
culty and try to overcome it in various ways. The fact of 
age in a business is worth advertising because age is 
some assurance of quality or service for without them 
the business might not have survived. But some of the 
best nurseries are new nurseries. The fact of size also 
warrants the assumption of a certain value in products 
without which the business might not have grown big. 
And yet some of the very small nurseries grow excellent 
stock and they answer your argument with theirs: the 
advantage of small acreage and personal attention to 
every detail. Some advertisers fall back on specialties 
and it is of great value to be able to offer something 
worth-while that others cannot supply. And yet the 
public has noticed that not ten per cent of the novelties 
introduced with a great flourish of trumpets ever meas¬ 
ure up to the old tested varieties. And so the public has 
become doubtful about that sort of advertising. And 
then there is the too common appeal of cheap prices, an 
argument that defeats itself at once—or should—be¬ 
cause prices lower than the average among good firms 
invite the conclusion that they mean one of two things: 
either that the trees are not worth more than a cheap 
price or else that the nurseryman admits his incapacity 
as a salesman. And admitted incapacity in one matter 
arouses suspicion of incapacity in other matters con¬ 
nected with the business. Whenever a merchant tells me 
that his goods wont bring as much as another mer¬ 
chant’s, I’m not going to risk buying his goods at any 
price. I can say out of experience, and I think all of 
you can, too, that buyers are not attracted by cheap 
trees although they may be attracted by cheap prices. 
All of you have received letters telling you that your 
prices are higher than somebody else’s but that if you 
will meet so-and-so’s prices, the order will be placed 
with you. He wants your trees at the cheap man’s 
price. The bargain price makes buyers suspicious of 
the goods. 
It is necessary for every nurseryman to have some 
good reason why buyers should give him their orders. 
That reason may be found in different things: the care 
with which varieties are propagated, the thoroughness 
of their cultivation, suitable land, equipment for proper 
handling at packing time, shipping facilities, the service 
that follows delivery. All these are things that the buy¬ 
er is interested in. Of overshadowing importance to the 
buyer is the matter of getting fruit trees true to name. 
Ours is an ancient occupation. The first recorded his¬ 
tory—if we accept the Scriptures—is an account of a 
Garden in which there were trees and plants and flowers 
without which it would not have been a Paradise. The 
nursery business existed from the very start and it is 
worth noting that the very first apple orchard planted 
resulted in raising Cain! And ever since then, somebody 
or other has been raising Cain about the nursery busi¬ 
ness. 
Now, it is my honest opinion that the great bulk of the 
trees sold have been true to name. We hear a great deal 
about those that have not but we hear very little about 
the profitable orchards that have turned out to be exactly 
what was ordered. That is because the one is interest¬ 
ing news and the other isn’t. If Jenkins gets drunk 
and beats his wife, the neighbors all talk about it be¬ 
cause it is a thing unusual in the community. But if 
Simkins pays his bills and goes to church and behaves 
himself according to ordinary standards that doesn’t ex¬ 
cite the community at all. The usual and the expected 
excite no comment; it is the unexpected and the unusual 
that set tongues to wagging and moves the community 
to excited comment. And yet that comment quite as 
much as any basis it may have in fact, makes it impera¬ 
tive that nurserymen use every precaution and always 
greater precaution to have their fruit trees true to name. 
Continued confidence, permanent trade and profitable 
business depend on that. To give reasonable assurance 
of true-to-name stock is the most interesting thing a nur¬ 
seryman can say to buyers and the most important ele¬ 
ment in his own success. 
When should nurserymen advertise? Or, to put it dif¬ 
ferently, when do folks buy trees and plants? That ques¬ 
tion has to be answered by every advertiser with respect 
to his goods. And I think that you and I can answer 
as to nursery stock out of our own experience in buying 
other things. Isn’t it a fact that we very often make up 
our minds to buy certain articles long before we get 
them? I can name off-hand a dozen things that I have 
seen advertised that I am certainly going to get later on. 
I haven’t come into possession of them yet. But they 
have been sold to me. That part of it has been done. 
And that is what we are considering. 
Catalogue nurserymen advertise only in the fall and 
spring. I never knew exactly why, so I asked a good 
many and it interested me to find that I got the same 
answer in every instance: “It doesn’t pay to advertise 
at other seasons. We get orders only in the spring and 
fall.” 
The last part of that statement, we all know to be per¬ 
fectly true. Fall and spring are the planting seasons; 
folks send for nursery stock when they are ready to 
plant it. But we are not talking about planting; we are 
talking about buying. I feel very sure that folks buy 
trees and plants every day in the year; that is, they make 
up their minds to buy just as you and I do about the 
things we buy. 
When does a woman buy rose-bushes? Of course, 
she makes out her order and sends it off in the spring, 
because that is the time to plant roses. But we are not 
talking about delivering and planting; we want to know 
when she buys roses. When does that woman make up 
her mind to buy roses and what varieties to buy? Isn’t 
it in June, when roses are in bloom in her garden or in 
the neighbors’ gardens? And why isn’t that the very best 
time to advertise roses?—to have the garden’s beautiful 
illustration of what to buy supplemented by the adver¬ 
tised suggestion of where to buy? 
When does a man decide that it might be a mighty fine 
idea to have half a dozen peach trees in the back garden? 
Isn’t it likely to be about the time when Friend Wife is 
