268 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
I 
MEMBERS AND FRIENDS OF THE SOUTHERN NURSERYMEN’S ASSOCIATION AS THEY APPEARED ON THE GROUNDS 0i[ 
S(MMi the place ])ei()re, tliere is always sonu^thing new 
and inlei'('sting. 
■‘Fi(dd Day ’ spend on Long Island was voted by all 
jnesent as one of the most interesting and instructive 
('ver attended, and the only regret of those present was 
that there had not been more of their fellow nurserymen 
to make the trip with them. 
GETTING LANDSCAPE BUSINESS 
By Walte7- E. CainpheU, Greensloro, N. C., Read Before the 
Convention of the Southern Nur.seryme^i's Associatioii 
The Garden of Eden was the first landscape garden, Adam 
and Eve were the first landscape gardeners. There is plenty of 
history to substantiate the fact that this was a purely or¬ 
namental garden, that some fruit was only for ornamental pur¬ 
poses and not intended to be eaten. But Eve, woman like, had 
to let her curiosity get the best of her and went around sampling 
all the fruit. Well that was not so bad if she had stopped there, 
but then she started throwing the bull to Adam, and gentleman 
landscape gardeners have been doing it ever since. 
Recently I made a call at a handsome home in Charlotte. The 
lady said she had a horticultural freak she wanted to show me 
and led the way to a planting of Osmajiihus amei'icana and 
called my attention to the variations in the foliage. All of you 
who are familiar with this plant know that it has a freakish 
tendency to produce some leaves* that are serrated, some spiny, 
and some entire, all in the same whirl, it is not a case of prim¬ 
ary and secondary foliage for all three types appear in the same 
seasons growth. She showed me the small round smooth leaves 
gro ing in the same v hirl as the spiny and serrated ones, ind 
said that a nursery representative, whose card said he was a 
landscape gardener, told her that the plant was a very rare 
specimen as it was crossed with the rambler rose growing on a 
trellis over head. 
Gentlemen this is no time to laugh, it is a time to pause and 
think. It is just such bull as that which is hurting our reputa¬ 
tions. 1 do not dispute Darwin’s theory that the genus homo 
and genus lemeus may be crossed, for that agent was a striking 
example with an excess of the latter genus. However, I do know 
for a certainty that no one can effect a hybrid between the 
Gleaceae and Roseacea families. 
We may not be encouraging such things today, but to say the 
least we are condoning them when we do not absolutely put a 
stop to such practices. 
Selling ornamental plants to intelligent city people requires 
more knowledge and less bull than selling fruit trees to uned¬ 
ucated farmers; and if you allow your men to practice such 
methods somebody is going to call your hand and your reputa¬ 
tion is going to suffer. There has been a vast change in the nur¬ 
sery business even within the memory of the young men present 
here today. Even no longer than twenty years ago the volume of 
business was in fruit stock. The ornamental field is fast grip¬ 
ping the attention of every wide awake nurseryman. 
There is no easier way to sell nursery stock than to show the 
people. An attractive little sketch will sell more plants than a 
plate book with a thousand pictures. If you are to get this bus¬ 
iness you must know your plants and how to group them. There 
are plants for sunny places, plants for shady places, plants for 
wet places, plants for dry places, plants that thrive in ordinary 
soil, plants that require rich soil, plants that even grow in poo^ 
soil. The whole ericaceous family demands an acid soil. 
Do you expect the ordinary agent whom you glean from all 
walks in life to go out and intelligently represent you, with no 
schooling and no training in the intricacies of one of the great¬ 
est studies of nature? These agents must be trained. Look at the 
results obtained by the Fuller Brush Co., the All Silk Hosiery 
Co., and numerous other organizations who are taking raw hu¬ 
man material and making real salesmen of them for house to 
house canvass. 
Every nurseryman ought to be a well informed and a con¬ 
scientious horticultural adviser for his own community. To 
fill this position acceptably v e all will have to do some studying. 
We should know habits and characteristics of our plant material 
as well as methods of growing and selling. 
P. T. Barnum said: “The American people love to be hum¬ 
bugged,’’ but Abe Lincoln went one better when he said, “You 
can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people 
all the time, but you can’t fool all the people all of the time.” 
If you would enter the landscape field you must put your house 
in order from top to bottom. A landscape planting must be ar¬ 
tistic. The assortment must be well balanced and grade uni¬ 
form. One shrub must not be three foot high with seven stems 
and another five feet high with two stems. If a landscape arch¬ 
itect’s order calls for shrubs three to four feet, they must be 
that grade and nor two to three feet or four to five. 
Digging must be more carefully done. How many nurserymen 
spend ten years growing a tree and then absolutely murder it at 
digging time? There must be more transplanting of growing 
stock, especially evergreens, more shaping, staking and prun¬ 
ing in the nursery row. iMore care must be exercised in the 
handling of stock between the field and the packing shed. Roots 
must be covered and trunks protected from bruises. Those little 
invisible' hairs v hich collect the moisture and food supply of a 
plant if exposed to ten minutes direct rays of the smi, dry and 
wither. Guard them more carefully, then you will not have so 
many replacements. 
More care must be exercised in the packing shed. Stock must 
not be jammed into boxes so that the tops are skinned and the 
t: unks bruised. A little straw around the cleats of the boxes 
or under the belts of the baling machine will save many a 
trunk bruise which is responsible for dead hearts and trunk 
cankers. Be more careful in the appearance of boxes and bales. 
Second hand boxes may be cheaper, but they don’t help your 
reputation. 
More business like methods must be adopted in t he office. 
IMail must be promptly answered, and all questions given care¬ 
ful attention. 
Neat personal appearance must be demanded of the salesmen. 
A clean collar costs two and one-half cents, a suit may be press¬ 
ed for fifty cents, a tooth brush costs thirty five cents, a hair 
cut forty cents and you can buy a good safety razor for a dollar. 
