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FOR GROWER SAND DEALERS IN NURSERY STOCK 
The National Nurseryman Publishing Co., Incorporated 
Vol. XXXII HATBORO, PENNA., SEPTEMBER 1924 No. 9 
The Nursery Game As Seen by a Foreman 
By M. L. Tipiiin, Toppcriish, Washlnylon 
II Is So Seldom That a Voire From I Be Banks of Nursery Workers Is Heard We Gladly Publish I he Follouuny 
and TrusI Mr. Tippins Example Will Be Followed By Olher Nursery Workers. 
It is almost beyond the comprehension of llie mind to 
grasp the idea of the nursery game. It a])pears the more 
you try to learn the less you know and that if a nursery¬ 
man lived long enough he would probably he a lunatic 
or decide that he had been born with a weak mind. 
It is one profession that is not mastered in one’s life 
time. Most any other business or profession can he mas¬ 
tered in time but not so with the nursery game. I often 
wonder if there is not a chance for our profession to he 
finished and mastered “over there.” 
The question may arise in the minds of the skeptical 
who are not nurserymen that the nurserymen will he few 
and far between across the Great Divide. This of course, 
may be a matter of opinion, but it seems to me that if 
one is rewarded according to his hard work, his trials and 
tribulations on this earth , the nurseryman will sit in the 
front row. This doesn’t apply to all, of course, as in 
some other profession, hut surely more so than in any 
other profession I know of. 
I am only speaking from a foreman’s point of view. 
I have now passed the fortieth milestone and with the 
exception of about three years since a boy of seventeen, 
I have been in this game. I spent only a few years of 
this time for myself and the balance for the other man. 
I have been with the nurseryman of the Sunny South, 
the nurseryman of the cold bleak plains ol Minnesota 
and the Dakotas, the nurseryman of the Central States 
and the nurserymen of the great Pacific Northwest. I 
have shared their few good times and have also shared 
their troubles, failures and sorrows. I say without fear 
of contradiction that nine out of ten are the greatest men 
on earth because they are engaged in the greatest ino- 
fession in life. 
This profession holds a man close to nature year in 
and year out and if a man keeps in close and constant 
touch with nature as a nurseryman has to do, he can’t be 
a great way from a higher power. It may seem strange 
to those wdio do not know^ that while this profession is 
so hard and has so many drawbacks that so many con¬ 
tinue therein. This ([uestion can only be intelligently 
answered by a nurseryman himself. 
Again it may seem strange to the reader that a man ol 
the writer’s age would he still laboring on lor the other 
man. I w ill say here that I have no time to think ol my¬ 
self or own interest for figuring for the other man. I 
may not have as much to show" for my efforts as some, 
still I would not give the varied experience I have had 
in twenty-seven years for any other experience of the 
same duration of time in the world. It may be that 
after the battle is over over here and I have passed on, 
there will be a little reminder, a little monument in the 
w ay of a tree, a shruh, or a dower that w ill perhaps 
chance the passerby to stop and think of the poor nur¬ 
sery foreman that helped make such things possible and 
the journeyor-by may also think that after all he heljied 
in some small w"ay to make this earth a better place on 
w hich to live. In any such event I would not feel that 
my life had been misspent or my work here in vain. 
As to the mastering of the nursery business I some- 
fines think the longer one works at it the less he knows. 
I don’t believe any man knows the business and that he 
will learn from the cradle to the grave in this profession. 
My experience is that a man that know s the game from 
A to Z is a most dangerous party to have around. Ex¬ 
perience is surely the best teacher in the nursery busi¬ 
ness, speaking from the view of a foreman (am not ad¬ 
vocating changing from place to place probably as often 
as I have done, but there is something to be learned from 
every nurseryman in the land). You w ill find no two con¬ 
cerns doing the same thing in the same w ay, all striving 
to achieve the same purpose in the end. I often think it 
w ould be a practical thing to do should each nurseryman 
give his foreman a chance to see mori* of the other fel- 
low ’s business ojierations and the diderent ways things 
can be done I have often thought the man that stays tied 
to one place alw ays is more or less likely to become set in 
his ways and sometimes narrow and often times self- 
conceited and think there is no other way only his way. 
I believe the more a man sees of the other’s business the 
more he learns, he will learn to learn, he will learn to 
look, he will leaiii to listen and he will realize sooner 
or later how insignificant he is on this earth, just a tiny 
dew" drop of the early morning, appearing for a little 
while, then vanishing away. I am not (Micouraging fore¬ 
men to shift from nursery to nursery. I don't want to 
discourage any foreman with his position, but I do say 
if he has stayed constantly in one place many years and 
not seen the other fellow’s way that he is likely to be 
losing out on many a good point in his business and pro¬ 
fession. Some may say “a rolling stone gathers no 
