THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
45 
The National Nurseryman 
Established 1893 by C. L. YATES. Incorporated 1902 
Published monthly by 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN PUBLISHING CO., Inc. 
Hatboro, Pa. 
Editor .ERNEST HEMMING, Flourtown, Pa. 
The leading trade journal issued for Growers and Dealers in 
Nursery Stocks of all kinds. It circulates throughout the 
United States, Canada and Europe. 
AWARDED THE GRAND PRIZE AT PARIS EXPOSITION, 1900 
SUBSCRIPTION RATES 
One Year in Advance .$1.50 
Foreign Subscriptions, in advance .$2.00 
Six Months .$1.00 
Advertising rates will be sent upon application. Advertisements 
should reach this office hy the 20th of the month previous to the date 
of issue. 
Payment in advance required for foreign advertisements. Drafts 
on New York or postal orders, instead of checks, are requested hy the 
Business Manager, Hathoro, Fa. 
Correspondence from all points and articles of interest to nursery¬ 
men and horticulturists are cordially solicited. 
Photographs and news notes of interest to nurserymen should he 
addressed, Editor, Flourtown, Pa., and should he mailed to arrive not 
later than the 25th of the month. 
Entered as second-cla^s matter June 22, 1916, at the post office at 
Hathoro, Pennsylvania, under the Act of March 3, 1879. 
Hatboro, Pa., February 1919 
Subscribers to *‘Nurserymen*s Fund for 
Market Development'* 
The whole suhjeet of eoniiiiissions is a 
COMMISSIONS distasteful one to discuss hut after all 
it so raiuihes nearly all business in 
some form or other that it is foolish to ignore it. Like 
tipping, nearly everyone wishes it could he done away 
with, hut are helpless, and keep on paying tribute. 
Some commissions are perfectly e(iuitahle, proper and 
just, while others are pernicious and criminal. 
It requires a very fine discrimination to judge between 
legal discounts in their various forms, rebates, bargains, 
quantity rates, presents and endless forms of reciprocal 
agreements, and those which are frowned upon as un¬ 
moral. 
Legality does not always prove the morality of a trans¬ 
action, and very often influence and pull misused are 
just as pernicious as an unlawful commission. 
In our own particular trade it is very difTieult to say 
which is the higher grade of ethics, the nurseryman who 
deliberately offers a discount or the one who uses his 
influence to put a gardener in a position with the ex¬ 
pectation that the gardener will reciprocate hy placing 
orders with him. 
Both aim at an essential, namely, the gardener’s good 
will, as they recognize he has the power, if so minded, to 
make or break that particular business eonneetion. 
Apart from the morality it is the unjust exaction from 
the nurseiyman that galls. Why should he, in addition 
to competition, be called upon to purehase business, for 
that is what it really amounts to, not only from gardeners, 
hut landscape architects and others. The lower prices 
allowed the landscape architect who passes them on to 
his client is really “trimming” the nurseryman to further 
his own interests. Both should receive their remunera¬ 
tion from their employer and not the nurseryman. 
There may not be much wrong in allowing a small dis¬ 
count to the man who is going to have the care of the 
plants you sold. It is perhaps to his employer’s interest 
to encourage him to give the best results from the stock 
hut it lets down the bars to criminal robbery. It is only 
a step to a larger order for the sake of the commission, 
for which the gardener’s employer has to pay and for 
which he does not get adequate returns. 
Custom will often make right out of a wrong. If the 
employer, the buyer and the seller are all cognizant of 
the discount, it may he a poor way of doing business, but 
there is nothing wrong. 
After everything has been said, and the subject 
viewed from every angle, the only decision that can 
be arrived at is that it is the nurseryman’s own fault. 
It is only when it is done under cover and to the detri¬ 
ment of one of the parties does it become immoral. 
The remedy is easily seen, let the nurserymen adopt a 
uniform rule, publish it and stick to it and the trouble 
largely vanishes. 
If every commission paid was open and above board so 
as to be just to everyone concerned, it would soon remove 
the stigma and sus])icion with which it is now associated. 
Gardener A is employed hy Mr. B. Business ethics 
would frown upon him for receiving a discount on pur¬ 
chases made for the man who pays him his salary, hut 
business ethics would likely reward him with a smile if 
he made a few dollars hy recommending the same nur¬ 
seryman to Mr. G. 
Like many other phases of this life, it is not what it 
ought to he hut what is that concerns us most and what 
we are in contact with every day. 
The nursery business has two separate phases, pro¬ 
duction and distribution. Rightly or wrongly the dis¬ 
counts have to he added to the overhead of the latter. 
The over-anxious salesman, selling on commission, 
may split it with the purchaser. It may be poor business 
hut few would question his right. He is injuring him¬ 
self and cutting prices. 
What is needed to reduce the unsavory giving of com- 
missons to inocuous desuetude is an open business policy 
based on common business sense to be adhered to hy the 
majority. 
The greatest remedial measure against unmoral com¬ 
missions would he tlieir publication, but how to put such 
a measure into effect is the great problem. 
The all wise Creator in his infinite wisdom must 
BUGS have considered all bugs necessary to round out 
the ])lan of creation or they would not have been 
here. 
It is evident the entomologist, at least that portion con¬ 
nected with the Government, think otherwise, and are 
going to try and legislate them out of the countiy if it 
is possible. 
Only good hugs will he permitted to domicile them¬ 
selves in these United States. 
Even those native horn indigena will have to he on 
their good behaviour and function only according to the 
approval of the Federal Horticultural Board. 
The orchards will produce nothing but first grade 
fruit, no scale, blight, mildew, nothing to spray for, just 
go and gather the fruit which will be as good in the lazy 
