THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
239 
feeding him peaches-and-cream for breakfast or peach- 
cobbler for Sunday dinner? 
Now, that idea of using and profiting by the illustra¬ 
tion of our products in the orchard and in the garden can 
be carried out in every month and every week in the 
year. Peonies should be planted in the fall; but it 
looks to me like a mighty good time to advertise them 
when Peonies are in bloom in the spring. Fruits can be 
profitably advertised in their fruiting season. Talk about 
fruit when folks are eating fruit. Last summer, I read 
a newspaper account of a man in Illinois who sold his 
crop of Yellow Transparent Apples on a forty acre lot 
for $20,000. Now, why wasn’t that fact a good thing 
for nurserymen with apple trees to sell to advertise right 
at that time? Advertising is always most effective when 
it is tied up to a concrete fact. And there is no month 
of the year when nurserymen can’t do that. In the dead 
of winter when the evergreens stand like brides in their 
snowy veils, when the hedge of hemlock or of spruce 
gives cheer and protection to the place, when the slender 
birches stand like sentinels against the grey sky-line, 
when the barberries with the ripe red berries add a touch 
of warmth and color to the snow-covered lawn,—isn’t 
that a good time to call attention to the enhanced beauty 
of the landscape and to suggest where those things can 
be bought? We must use the constant selling help of 
our own products. 
I take it, then, that the best time, the obvious time, to 
advertise nursery stock of some kind is every day in the 
year. We tell ourselves that ours is a seasonal busi¬ 
ness; but it isn’t. Our season for digging and shipping 
is short but our selling season extends throughout the 
whole year. And advertising should be followed with 
catalogues of seasonable plants. The annual catalogue 
is too large. Its length is confusing. I was recently read¬ 
ing an article about big catalogues in Printers’ Ink. It 
referred to big catalogues in general but a specific in¬ 
stance was cited in our trade and therefore interesting. 
The writer said he wanted to plant a bed of Tulips, so he 
answered an advertisement and received a large and 
handsome book offering trees and plants and bulbs of 
every description. He said there were a dozen pages 
devoted to Tulips in hundreds of varieties all apparently 
very desirable. But out of so many offerings, he said 
he could not arrive at any decision and in the end bought 
none. But sometime later he received a little four-page 
folder offering bulbs in collections including a bed of 
Tulips for $10. He ordered two collections by return 
mail. He got an intelligent offer of what he wanted tell¬ 
ing him how far apart and how deep to plant and all he 
wanted to know. It brought his order. 
Now, I think that we nurserymen might study the 
lesson in that. A four, eight or sixteen-page folder of¬ 
fering only one or two articles like Roses or Peonies or 
hedge plants or shade trees is far more effective and will 
bring more orders than a catalogue of two hundred 
pages. The folder is inexpensive in printing and post¬ 
age. Besides, the people who write you are not interest¬ 
ed in everything you grow. They nearly always tell 
you what they want. A woman who goes into a depart¬ 
ment store to buy a pair of silk stockings doesn’t expect 
to be shown the stew-pans and wash-tubs and smoking- 
jackets before getting a chance to buy what she wants. 
I’d say: split the catalogue up into a number of folders 
offering one line; advertise each line at the blooming or 
fruiting season; and remind buyers with a dozen small 
catalogues instead of one big one. Some progressive 
and prosperous firms are doing that right now. The 
folder is specific; it answers the inquiry; it talks about 
one thing at a time; it is a bullet instead of bird-shot. 
Besides, we grow entirely too many varieties. Half 
of them are has-beens. Quite a lot are never-wasers. 
A nurseryman will remember that last spring he got an 
order for a couple of trees of a variety that somebody’s 
grand-mother thought a lot of on the old place back in 
Vermont or down in Texas; and so this summer he scur¬ 
ries around and gets some scions and buds fifty or a hun¬ 
dred trees in the remote possibility that some other des- 
cendent of the old lady will be moved by filial regard to 
order a variety long ago discarded. That is poor busi¬ 
ness. I believe that we could drop seventy-five per cent 
of the varieties we grow without loss either to planters 
or to nurserymen. The average nurseryman, catering 
to the trade of orchard planters, can get along nicely 
with 20 varieties of Apples and 10 each of Peaches, 
Pears and Plums. Propogating and handling hundreds 
of varieties offers just that many more chances for er¬ 
rors. And in describing varieties, let us get away from 
superlatives. They can’t all be the best and yet if you 
read some catalogues you will think so unless you hap¬ 
pen to know better. The best catalogue I ever read de¬ 
scribed peaches only by giving the month of ripening in 
that section, the color and whether cling or free-stone, a 
line for each variety which was quite enough to cover 
the essentials. 
I have said that I believe in advertising every month 
in the year because something is illustrated every month 
in the garden or orchard and that timeliness gives point 
and effect to the copy. But a still better reason than 
that is because trees and plants can be sold every month 
and a matter of fact, are sold every day. If that is not 
true, why is it that the nurserymen who employ agents 
keep their salesmen on the road throughout the year. 
They do that because they know from experience that 
trees can be sold and are sold every day. The catalogue 
firms are making sales every day, but unlike the agency 
houses who get their orders in every week, the catalogue 
nurserymen get theirs in only at planting time. I think 
the catalogue men confuse the receipt of the orders with 
the actual sale of the goods. 
Nurserymen who sell through agents alone do not ad¬ 
vertise. I have asked a great many, why? And I have 
invariably gotten the same answer: “It doesn’t pay us to 
advertise. It takes the man on the spot to get the signa¬ 
ture on the dotted line.” Of course it does. But going 
back to our own experience in buying, how do we act? 
I see something advertised and I write for further infor¬ 
mation. Very soon I get a letter telling me what I want 
to know and maybe a catalogue followed by other print¬ 
ed matter. Then one day a traveling representative of 
the house comes along and if he is a good “closer,” he 
books my order. But let us keep this in mind: that now¬ 
adays the traveler is not so much the salesman as he is 
the closer. He gets the signature on the dotted line; he 
completes a sale already made. In many cases—in most 
cases, I venture to say,—the actual sale has been made 
