THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
231 
SELLING 
The best time to sell is when you can find a buyer. 
Buyers of nursery stock are easiest found when the stock 
can be planted. August begins the fall planting season 
so it is time to hunt them up and the best place to hunt 
them is where they live and do their planting. 
As the correspondence course in salesmanship tells us 
the first essential to a sale is to gain the attention of the 
buyer. The work of the Market Development Committee, 
with its newspaper publicity, the catalogues, advertise¬ 
ments, garden jieriodicals, lectures, etc., that have been 
going on are all a means to this end and corresponds to 
working and fertilizing the field of endeavor. 
Of course it is a thing devoutly to be wished that the 
above means would bring in a large crop of orders, 
enough to absorb all the stock the nurseryman has grown, 
so the nurseryman could sit back and take orders. But 
things don’t work out that way, only a small portion come 
in unsolicited. The bulk are waiting for the salesman to 
come after them and turn them in to his own special firm. 
He cannot be sure they will receive the right attention if 
they go to some other firm. 
Good propaganda makes things easy for him, but it 
does not take the place of selling, there is still the per¬ 
sonal contact of the good salesman necessary to bring 
the prospect and how much depends on that personal 
contact. 
It may be the individual with his plate book is sufficient 
to turn in a certain amount of orders, but that is order 
taking and what we are talking about is selling, not un¬ 
loading a lot of stock on a customer regardless of his ac¬ 
tual needs, that used to be considered good salesmanshi]), 
but now, only, a sales transaction that benefits both buy¬ 
er and seller is considered sound business. 
For selling nursery stock this requires men of judg¬ 
ment who know their business. Plate books and pictures 
are a help. 
Other things being equal the single handed nurseryman 
who does his own selling is perhaps the ideal. He not 
only knows his stock, having grown it, but usually has 
a personal interest in his customers, and when he “un¬ 
loads” he does it intelligently with a benefit to the cus¬ 
tomer. 
Although, perhaps, contrary to the ideas of the effi¬ 
ciency experts, as it interferes with the system of large 
organization, it is by no means a bad plan to consider 
every man a salesman from the boss to the office boy and 
Ihe general manager to the pot boy, not only in theory 
but by actually sending them out, keeping record of the 
business they bring in to the firm. 
Selling is the biggest balf of the nursery business yet 
few firms have their selling or distribution as well devel¬ 
oped as the production. 
For a well posted man, backed by a good firm, selling 
nursery stock is the most interesting and lascinating of 
games, for it is a game from start to finish and in which 
the winnings are always proportionate to the amount of 
brains and energy put into it to say nothing of the fun. 
In the first place his efforts, while basically selfish, are 
for profit, if he is so constituted he can truthlully con¬ 
sider himself an apostle of Beauty whose only object in 
life is to raise the standard of living of his fellow men. 
make the world a hotter jdace to live in although his mo¬ 
tives may not be altruistic. 
The people he meets in his travels are usually the edu¬ 
cated and refined as they are the ones he is mostly in 
contact with, and if he is worthy will make friends and 
acquaintances among the best in the land of all stations 
in life, from the millionaire manufacturer with his large 
estate to one of the factory workers who has raised him¬ 
self above his fellows by taking an interest in the sur¬ 
roundings of his modest home. 
He meets the garden club ladies, God bless them, who 
perhaps rarely give an order worth while yet are his 
greatest helpers. 
He travels in the country where the whole landscape 
is his display window and his customers are living in it, 
if he has only brains enough to know it. His wares are 
living things of which he can offer items for a few dol¬ 
lars that will be worth hundreds to the buyer in a few 
years. 
His goods are never a finished product, he has to sell 
faith, well founded, and hope along with them and what 
is best of all that knowledge that the best rose has yet to 
he grown. 
BEPOBT OF UOMMITTEE ON STANDABDIZATION 
OF HOBTICULTUBAL TRADE PRACTICE 
As Chairman of the Committee on Standardization of 
Horticultural Trade Practice, I fear I am not competent 
to carry this work on in the able manner that President 
Kelsey has in the past. Many of you will recall the adop¬ 
tion of the Horticultural Standards, as recommended by 
your committee at the Chicago convention of 1923. Most 
of you, no doubt, received the pamphlet issued by the 
association covering these standards. I shall only under¬ 
take to touch on rules for grading ornamentals. Ever¬ 
greens and Fruit Trees. 
I think the rules adopted for grading deciduous trees 
have given general satisfaction. There are a few^ of our 
members who would prefer that caliper be taken one 
foot above the collar instead of six inches as provided. 
I think though, the large majority have been taking the 
caliper six inches above the collar for some years. 
The grading table on Evergreens provides for using- 
three inch series up to tw elve inches, then six inches up 
to twenty-four inches. Then foot series up to six feet, 
then two feet series up. In actual practice this grading- 
table wmrks very good, except on slow growing varieties 
the six inch series up to thirty-six inches is more prac¬ 
tical. 
On deciduous shrubs tbe table provides that all shrubs 
shall be well furnished. Strong growing shrubs to be 
graded in six inch series up to twenty-four inches, then 
by single feet up to six feet. On dwarf shrubs the table 
should be more definite. It reads state in inches up to 
twenty-four inches, usually in three inch series. I 
recommend that the three inch series he used 
up to eighteen inches, and then six inch uj) to thirty-six 
inches. This w ill make the grade of larger-sized dwarf 
shrubs such as Dentzia Gracilis, Spirea “Anthony Water- 
er’’ and Thimbergi Philadelphus aurea, 11 / 2-2 feet, 2-21/2 
feet, 21 / 2-3 feet. This practice is being follow^ed by many 
of the shrub growers. The grade of 2-3 feet is too wide 
