THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
191 
Address by Mr. L. R. Latshaw 
Of Ihe Butlerick Pahliskimj Company before Ike Anierivan Assoeiatoln 
of i\urserymen on Jane 25, 1919 
Mr. President and Gentlemen: — 
I come before you as an advertising man. An advertising man 
considers himself essentially a salesman. Advertising we con¬ 
sider the forerunner of sales. We believe that before the actual 
transfer of money is made in any financial transaction, that a 
sale is made mentally. 
If I had the power of an orator I could build up any picture 
that I chose before you this morning. I could, we will say, create 
thirst. I could talk about burning sands and the thirst occa¬ 
sioned thereby, and then I could describe some delicious drink, 
until I had you fairly parched in your throats. I would sell you 
a drink, although I did not actually have a drink to pass oui over 
the bar, or a hand ready to reach for the money to pay for it. I 
would he selling you the idea of a drink, and if 1 could sell it 
strong enough, you would get up and leave the meeting and go 
downstairs for that drink. Now, the bartender that sold you 
that drink over the counter considered that he was making the 
sale. He did not make the sale. I made the sale. He consum¬ 
mated the sale; I made it. 
Now, that is what advertising properly does. It sells you the 
idea of doing something, and then you or your agents consum¬ 
mate that idea. 
Originally, say twenty, oh, thirty or forty years ago, advertis¬ 
ing was chiefly used hy the faker. The Louisiana lottery was 
very heavily advertised. The maker of patent medicine, where 
the bottle cost three cents and its contents two cents and it sold 
for a dollar per and cured everything under the sun, that was the 
original user of advertising space, the faker. Ihe faker has 
always been the pioneer, and he has always been thrown out. 
Originally we started out by advertising to sell fakes. The sec¬ 
ond thing that we sold, and the idea was generally accepted, was 
the selling of a specific, definite, tangible commodity. Ivory Soap, 
or Gold Dust, or talking machines, or a specific piece of mer¬ 
chandise, and now we are beginning to enter the third era, the 
sale of ideas. All labor unions present their side of the case, and 
the employer presents his, and one or the other sells the idea to 
the public and the case is closed, the idea is sold. 
One of the chief and most important things about advertising, 
if your Association undertakes it, is its recognition of well-estab¬ 
lished standards. The canners of vegetables in this country are 
putting throught now an inspection system of their own for selD 
protection. They expect to put out their own inspectors, as the 
Department of Agriculture does in the packing of meat, so that 
when any of you gentlemen buy a can of canned corn or peas, or 
beans, or what not, and it has the inspection mark or stencil of 
the Canners’ Association, you may have the same assurance of 
the sanitary conditions under which that packing was done that 
you have when you buy United States inspected meats. 
Now, when that Canners’ Association starts that, they have 
taken one great step, when they take the next step, it perhaps 
will be to spend a million dollars and will advertise that stamp, 
advertise that brand; every year that they advertise they will 
add to the bond that they give to the public as security for the 
performance of what they promise, and as that bond increases, 
the penalty for not carrying out their obligations to themselves 
as expressed to the public so greatly increases that you have the 
finest security in the world for their carrying out exactly what 
they say, because they cannot afford to do otherwise. 
A very successful man in business here in Chicago told me 
that if honesty had never been discovered until recently, the 
smartest crook would have discovered it as being the best bus¬ 
iness policy. 
Now, I suppose every one of you employ salesmen and those 
salesmen—assume that they make that transaction, assume that 
they sell the goods. The thing I am trying to bear down on to¬ 
day is that the enormous rewards come to those manufacturers 
or that association who is successful in selling ideas to the whole 
country. 
I spoke yesterday about the Sunkist orange. The Sunkist 
orange is sold at auction in the fruit markets, and, as a general 
rule, a box of the brand of Sunkist oranges will sell for 25 cents 
above the market. Now, why? Why is it that the Sunkist As¬ 
sociation does not allow their own members to pack their own 
fruit? They discovered that Nature had made the most beautiful 
package in making an orange or a lemon; that if it was not inter¬ 
fered with or injured it could be carried for a long time, but if 
it were cracked, the blue mold spores would get into it in a very 
short time, and consequently the fruit would be ruined. They 
discovered that they could not afford careless packing, because 
if it was carelessly packed, if an orange or lemon were dropped 
and the fruit was injured, that beautiful package was cracked 
that Nature had put there and the fruit would spoil. Conse¬ 
quently the association does not permit the individual member to 
do his own picking and packing and grading; they do it for him. 
The association has got too much at stake to let any one slip any¬ 
thing over on them. That is the thing the public is beginning to 
realize, and if you gentlemen assume, if you in the association 
have any conception of the value of such a course, you will grasp 
the idea. 
I spoke yesterday about the paint and varnish association com¬ 
bining to sell the idea of using paint. The Brazilian Coffee 
growers and the American coffee importers have combined to 
sell the idea of coffee. I ventured the personal opinion yester¬ 
day that it was badly done, as contrasted with what one man, 
now deceased, Mr. Post, of Battle Creek did. He started out to 
sell you an idea; he started out to sell you the idea that coffee 
was harmful, and he sold that idea, and he sold because of that 
idea a villainous concoction of burnt cereals that made him mil¬ 
lions. It was simply the selling of an idea and not the selling of 
the commodity. 
The sale of the commodity follows the sale of the idea. I for¬ 
tunately do not have to ride in a Ford, but the Ford has sold to 
the public the idea of having gasoline and oil stations all over 
the country, and I have more ease riding around in a touring 
car, because I know I can get the oil and gasoline when I want 
it conveniently, because the idea has been sold to the people. 
Now, you have got to sell to the public the idea of proper plant¬ 
ing of trees, shrubs and plants and the growing of them. It is a 
natural instinct with folks, but you have got everything in the 
world to play on if you choose to. You have the matter of cu¬ 
pidity. Every second hand car dealer in any city paints and var¬ 
nishes and be-furbishes the cars that he takes in and handles and 
sells them again, and he would not think of selling a car with¬ 
out paint; and a clever real estate man will paint up a house be¬ 
fore he attempts to sell it. The cleverest real estate folks, first 
thing they do in building additions to any town is to put trees 
and shrubs out there. It is the best money proposition they can 
put in and they know it. A man told me the other day that he 
had sold three houses in a suburb of a large city in rapid succes¬ 
sion. He said, “I have great success with trees, and I set out 
