242 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
rich. There is a lot of money wasted for what some 
folks fondly imagine is advertising. It is easy to make 
money; the difficulty is to spend it. And by spending it 
I mean intelligently using its purchasing power. I have 
admitted that I think good nursery advertising copy is 
mighty hard to write. If I had any suggestions to offer 
they would be these: Have something to say. Say it in 
few words. Count ’em as you would the words in a 
cablegram; they cost a lot more. Let every statement 
be frank and to the point and absolutely truthful. Select 
a single line or a single idea and let it be featured in 
every advertisement. Vary the rest with the season. 
Talk about one thing at a time. Avoid humor as you 
would a pestilence; you may be as ponderously dull as 
you please and likely as not it will be accepted for wis¬ 
dom; but avoid wit. I would rather advertise in a big 
paper than a small one; its readers are apt to be better 
prospects. The prestige of the editorial page gives 
weight to what appears in the advertising pages. I’d 
rather have twelve inches in the biggest and best farm 
paper than one inch in a dozen papers. Large space is 
more effective than small space, but large or small, re¬ 
member the effectiveness of the wide margin. When 
you tell your story, stop. Use short words and few of 
them. Offer one thing but suggest others. Make it 
much meat and little gravy. 
You advise folks to go to a nurseryman for trees, don’t 
you? We nurserymen are not students of advertising. A 
good advertising agency can present our story better 
than we can. We must furnish the idea—the “reason 
why”—but the man used to doing that sort of thing can 
di ’ess it up better than we can. The advertising >copy. 
the catalogue and all other printed matter must be in per¬ 
fect harmony. They should be written together. Those 
in an orchestra play the same tune. Decide what sum 
you want to invest in a catalogue and then you or your 
advertising agency tell your printer that you want so 
many copies of a catalogue of so many pages and to give 
you the best he can for that amount. If the printer is a 
wise merchant, he wants your future orders; he is a fool 
if he doesn’t give you all he can for your money. If you 
buy like the planter who shops around for the cheapest 
trees, you may possibly have an experience like his. 
With our wide, rich country and its buying prospects 
open to every last one of us, with our people very largely 
the owners of their own homes and having a native wish 
to make those homes beautiful, with the greatest unde¬ 
veloped market in the world ours to supply, we need not 
worry about surplus or prices if we will just go about 
getting the business intelligently and aggressively. It 
seems to me that the best way to do that—the best way 
for those who sell through agents as well as those who 
sell by means of catalogues,—is with good, truthful, 
convincing advertisements backed up by catalogues that 
must be real sales-messengers rather than hand-books 
on trees and plants. And in both there must always be 
emphasized that “reason why:” the thing that gets cus¬ 
tomers and makes them friends and holds them. Confi¬ 
dence and good-will come first; the orders follow. Nor 
must we overlook the value of continuity in advertising 
and its cumulative effect. 
EMPLOYING EXPERTS 
The National Association of Gardeners recently organ¬ 
ized a branch at Glen Cove, Nassau Co., L. I. 
Secretary Ebel explained the purpose which was to 
form an association of Estate Superintendents and Gar¬ 
deners to protect their own interest and those of their 
employers from the encroachments of the so called gar¬ 
dening “experts” who offer their services in an advis¬ 
ory capacity to that of a none resident supervising man¬ 
ager. 
There is not the least doubt that the gardeners have 
good causes for their action. With so many graduates 
being turned out of Agricultural and other colleges it is 
to be expected they will try to turn their education into 
channels that will be productive of revenue. 
Unfortunately for them the profession of Horticulture 
is one of which one can only get the theory in colleges 
and theory is valueless unless supplemented with long 
practice. 
Only the man or woman who has done things, who 
have proved themselves by results have any right to pose 
as experts. 
To be an expert in Horticulture worthy of a fee for 
advice, calls not only for a college education, but for 
years of real labor to get experience, it cannot be ac¬ 
quired by proxy in matters relating to gardening. 
The gardeners however are hardly likely to suppress 
the efforts of the would be experts by forming an asso¬ 
ciation, the real way is to make it unnecessary for their 
employers to call one in. 
Too many gardeners look on their position as a com¬ 
fortable berth and as long as they keep the place looking 
nice, the supply of flowers, plants and vegetables up to 
the maximum they think their employers ought to be 
satisfied. 
Owners of estates are largely composed of business 
men who have made money. They may not know a rasp¬ 
berry cane from a currant bush, but they are usually 
good judges of men. If the man in charge of his place is 
willing to let well enough alone, the employer begins to 
wonder if he is getting all he should but, if on the con¬ 
trary his gardener is up on his toes, always making sug¬ 
gestions for improvements, economy of upkeep, and try¬ 
ing to interest him in the plants and things on the estate, 
it is hardly likely he will call in an expert except at the 
gardener’s suggestion and should the expert prove 
“phony” his advice would hardly be acted upon. 
Estate superintendants and gardeners should be broad 
minded, keeping in mind that no man knows it all, that 
live American business man is never satisfied except 
with perfection and that is never attained. He does not 
hesitate to call in an expert in his own business either 
in office or factory, although he may employ hundreds 
of men, superintendents and managers. It is hardly like¬ 
ly he will hesitate to do the same in the management of 
his home affairs. 
It is really up to the gardener to make it unnecessary 
for him to do so. but when occasion requires to advise 
his employer to do so and prove himself as big as his 
job. 
