298 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
Summer Planting and a year around income 
Head before the South Western Association of Nurserijnien by W. C. Griffing, Prop., 
Griffing Nurseries,,Port Arthur, Texas. 
D ON’T all say at once “Impossible”—I forget just 
whose definition it was, but somebody defined 
impossible as sometliing very difficult for the an¬ 
cients. When you look into the differential of an auto¬ 
mobile, it is then that you think all things possible. Sum¬ 
mer planting is not only possible, but the biggest asset to 
any nurseryman’s business. 
Bare-rooted trees cannot be transplanted after the sap 
has come up, but when trees are taken up with a ball of 
earth entact the roots, they can be handled at any time 
of the year, it matters not what season. 
Most of us are familiar with hailing and hurlapping 
as this process is called. For the benefit of those who are 
not, it is one of the most wonderful adventures, in the 
nursery and landscape business. A tree, shrub or plant 
is dug without disturbing the roots. Growth continues 
just as though that tree or plant had never been moved 
from the earth in which it originally grew. The sur¬ 
rounding earth which is lifted entact (the roots) yields 
nourishment and serves as protection for the roots until 
the tree or shrub is transplanted. 
We used to think, as many do now, when we w ere dig¬ 
ging stock hare-rooted and getting from 15 to 25c for a 
peach tree, that when the sap went down, we could com¬ 
mence digging and w hen the sap came up in the spring, , 
our season was closed. We would then cut half or more 
of our office and field forces, (in that way, letting trained 
help go), stop planting until the following November and 
then break in a new hunch of help. 
Nursery business is divided into departments:—Fruit, 
Ornamental, and so on. x\nd, there are different methods 
in selling. Some sell through direct Mail-Order Trade; 
some through salesmen on the road, and .then, there is a 
general line of landscape planting locally that every 
nurseryman and florist has to take care of. Summer 
planting apj)lies principally to the Ornamental Depart¬ 
ment; and to those who have or should have the Land¬ 
scape Department connected with their establishments. 
We are looking to the moneyed men for our long pro¬ 
fits aod not the old-time buyer wiio planted four peaches 
in his hack yard and three sycamores on his front walk. 
And, with the big man, his fancies come and go over 
night, and wiien he gets the home bee in his bonnet, then 
is the time w e want to reach out and he of seiwice to him 
in improving his surroundings, even though it is the first 
of August. 
You may come hack at me, and say that there is some¬ 
thing in our coast country atmosphere or climate that per¬ 
mits us to move this stock at this time of the year, but it 
is far from such. With us, we move our stock directly 
from the field to the yard, with hardly any losses. In 
the event that it a failure w ith you, try the next best way 
of defoilating about one-half—place in the packing shed ' 
and keep damp from one to three weeks until new roots 
form in the hall of earth. Another good method is to ball 
and burlap the stock prior to the months of April and May 
and ])lace this stock in a lath house or packing shed, 
heeled in shingletow' or hay (the tops should he kept well 
sprinkled). Then, just do enough ])lanting on your jobs 
to cinch them and k(‘e]) your labor busy and your cus¬ 
tomer happy. 
When stock is handled in this way, the ])lants go to 
your customer w ith leaves on them, and he likes that im¬ 
mediate effect in the ajjpearance. Me feels much better 
about the sj)ireas, altheas, Crepe Myrtle and many other 
of our deciduous shi uhs than he w ould if they were put 
out in the winter months, w ithout a leaf on them. And, 
there is a great advantage in planting evergreen trees and 
shrubs in summer, for they will live much more readily, 
when planted in the w arm ground By tlie time you get 
your customers job finished up, in January that you 
started in July (mid-summer), the hushes that have al¬ 
ready been put in have made, under the increase of w^ater 
and attention given them, a good growdh, and they are in 
a much better position to stand the following Spring’s 
drought, than if they had been planted during the winter 
months, and your man immediately becomes interested 
and the consequences are that in the windup, he thinks 
he has done as much tow^ards the building and beautifi¬ 
cation of his place as yourself, and there is an interest 
manifested that makes him happy. 
I feel as though a commercial salesman could come 
along and lay before you something as a side line that 
w'ouhl care for your labor situation in the summer, most 
of you wmuld take on an expenditure of from one to five 
thousand dollars in enlarging your business to take this 
on. Now^, I have a far different proposition; your pack¬ 
ing sheds are built; your help is already lined up; your 
trees and hushes are grown, and instead of investing that 
one to five thousand dollars, let’s get on the job, with a 
little close observation, and give it a thorough and fair 
trial. 
Our very prettiest yards are planted in mid-summer 
and people think us kind-of-strange and wmnderful; for 
a few^ years hack, they could not conceive the idea of 
planting a very big hush or tree even in the winter, to say 
nothing of the summer. 
I used to feel like I wanted to carry my catalog in my 
inside pocket, because I didn’t care to have some people 
I saw come and go, know^ that I w as in the nursery bus¬ 
iness. But today is different,—people are traveling and 
seeing pretty plantings. It is a topic of conversation at 
tea parties, and the “Ladies’ Home Journal,” “The Home 
Beautiful,” and other papers of their type are devoting 
from one to five pages and it is getting to he a real profes¬ 
sion. 
The average old tree salesman can’t go out and interest 
a man in a -$2,500.00 planting. For these reasons, it is 
up to us to put our whole hearts and smds into the bus¬ 
iness. Study ourselves and teach our employees in open 
discussion. Teach them to speak of the Acuha as a very 
pretty little plant from the Himalaya Mountains in Asia, 
and the Cedrus deodnra as the little cedar that Kipling 
