Interesting Facts About the Business
By Charlie Chestnut
The Civic club in Riverbend asked me to give a paper at the October meeting on interesting facts about the nursery business. We had a series along that line. Last month we had interesting facts about bein a ice man by Hod Williams and before that we had the interesting facts on bein a horse doctor. So my turn come and the president asked me to give a paper. In case there is any nurserymen which has to give papers to there Civic Club they is welcome to use the interesting facts which I have made up. Here is the paper just the way I give it:
Gents: It is a great honor to give this here paper to the different members. Some of you has been out to the nursery, but I would like to see more of you out there to buy stuff. (The president called me on that sentence afterwards, but I figgered to get in a little free advertising.)
Lots of the members thinks all they is to the nursery business is planting bushes and takin them up again and selling the bushes. Of course that is one of the parts of the nursery business, but that aint all.
Only this A.M. a lady called and says my maple tree is covered with a lot of worms with big red eyes and they are crawling all over everything. She wanted me to come and take the bugs away at once. I went down and sneaked up on a couple of worms and took them home in a paper bag. Then I looked em over with a magnifying glass and a microscope. You cant be too careful with worms. I looked the worms up in a lot of books and got the name of the worms but as it was a long name and the members couldnt pronounce it anyway there aint no use to give the name. Then we have got to make up a spray with a lot of drugs and medicine and go up and spray the worms.
That is one reason why any tom dick and harry cant be a nurserymen on account of you have got to be up on the over 6000 kinds of bugs and worms and find out what to spray on em to keep them from crawling over the bushes. I claim that is one of the reasons why the nursery business is interesting on account of the bugs.
Now take it on growing stuff. Sometimes you can grow a tree if you can get some seed but mostly the seed aint no good after you get it. Sometimes you can grow it if you take a cuttin and put it in the ground. But generally the cuttins dont grow if the summer aint real wet and as all the members know you cant tell nothin as to how the summer is going to be.
They is some nurserymen which grows stuff from grafts. That is a tricky way and not many nurserymen knows how to make a graft. Then there is a way to grow stuff from buds but that takes a pretty slick nurseryman too.
Most of the nurserymen dont grow nothing hardly, but makes trades with other nurserymen. If you are a nurseryman down south you go out on a farmers land and you pull up all the trees you want for nothin and then you trade them with some other nurseryman for some other stuff which he has traded with some other nurseryman. One time I checked up on a lot of trees that had changed hands 14 times when we got it. The trick is to get the best of the bargain and that is what makes the nursery business so interestin. You have got to be wide awake all the time to get the best of the trades. That is what we call the propagating department.
A fellow at the F and M Nursery was telling me last spring of a trade he got into and after rive or six trades he got his own stuff back at about 10% of what he sold it for in the first place.
Most of the trades start at the convention. When the nurserymen aint got nothin to do they will sit in the lobby of the hotel and trade stuff back and forth. One time I seen a car of lombardy poplars change hand four times in ten minutes and the same guy got his poplars back with a thousand roses throwed in. I could tell a lot of deals on trades that I have run on to in my time but then I wouldnt have no time to tell about the other interesting things in the nursery business.
Now take the landscape department. That is where a lady calls up and says how much will it cost to put a mulberry tree by the hen house and two spireas in front of the barn. You go down with a paper and a tape measure and you measure it all out. Then you go home and draw it out on a paper. If you are a high class landscaper you color the barn red and color the trees and the grass green. Generally when a landscaper aint making it go you will find he has been cuttin down too much on the colored pencils.
Then you take the plan back to the lady and tell her the job will cost 18.50. "My goodness, aint you folks awful high?" she says. "I was reading in the mail-order catalog where I can get 2 spireas and a mulberry for only 49 post paid for the lot." Then you have got to argue with the lady and finally you agree to put in the job for $3.00, and guarantee it for three years for nothin.
Another thing it helps if the landscaper will send to a male order house and get a pair of high top boots and a pair of army officers pants. It adds dignity to the nurseryman and they wont mistake him for a WPA worker if they see him with a shovel. It takes a lot of high class talent to put on a landscape dept. and thats what makes the nursery business so interesting. I tell you any ordinary mill run farmer cant do it, but there is a lot of em trying to get by.
The male order dept. is a good thing to have in any nursery. Generally you can work off anything that is too runty for the cash and carry dept. or the landscape dept. In the winter you make up a lot of packages of different odds and ends and pack them in some shoe boxes which you can generally pick up for nothin. The best price to sell at is 79. You can put any thing in the box that is laying around the nursery.
I know one nurseryman that makes a good living by hanging around the convention and buying up all the stuff that nobody wants and then he sells it for 79. He has changed his location every year so he dont get a lot of useless correspondence from different people asking foolish questions and making complaints about the fancy stuff that turned out to be asparagus roots and wild cherry roots. But it is a interesting department and most every nurseryman has one someplace around either under his own name or some phony name he made up.
There aint hardly any good up to date nursery that dont have a good agent department. Farmers which has moved in off the farm or preachers which has give up preachin makes the best agents. They aint too fancy and the people like to deal with somebody that dont go in for wearing a necktie and all that fancy stuff. They just drop in, in a friendly way and sell the lady a bleeding hard for 20 and then wind up by talking the lady into a cherry tree and a Irish Juniper.
Agents is all right in a way if you can get one that aint too mouthy and knows how to get around the mail order nurseryman. That is the worst part of it, when you are a agent and have to argue about the male order. In the old days the agents used to send in a order now and then when times was bad with a phony name off a grave stone in the cemetery. But as I say that is one of the reasons that the nursery is an interesting business.
The cash and carry department or the road side stand or sales yard as some calls it is one of the things that makes the nursery business interesting.
In the road side stand you can sell concrete alligators and toad stools and dwarfs, and candy bars and cigars and all kinds of pots and jars and that. One of the bad features to the road side stand is the way people come just as you are starting for the lodge meeting or have got your overhalls and your boots off readin the paper in the evening. They never want what is in the stand but you have got to go out with a lantern into the nursery and dig up what they want. The women is the worst. You cant tell em nothing as they dont know what they want when they see it, and they never want to pay what you ask. We have got a rule out to the nursery to ask $1.50 for any tree and then we can come to 75 and everybody is satisfied.
In the cash and carry you will rind a lot of stuff in baskets and tubs and boxes, but the chances are you dont want any of the stuff which the nurseryman has got out anyway so it dont hardly pay. I know one nurseryman who got so much stuff in boxes and pots on hand that he had to put in a filling station and give away a bush with a gal. of gas. He riggers that in about 4 years he will give enough away to clear out his land so he can begin again in the nursery business. The cash and carry has got a lot of good points and it sure makes the nursery business interestin.
There aint hardly a nursery that amounts to anything that aint got a wholesale department. That is where a nurseryman comes in and the conversation generally starts like this: "One of my men has sold 6 Blue Spruce about 4 feet. He sold them too cheap but it is for a good customer and I have got to rill the order. They dont have to be perfect so I can use some seconds. What could you let me have them for." Say you had in mind gettin $7.00, so you tell him you can have some of the lopsided ones for $4.00. "That's more than I sold em for but I will take em because I have got to fill the order. Maybe I ought to mark the trees so they will all look about alike." Now thats where the trouble comes in. You go out in the nursery and the best of the trees is none too good and he marks them all 6 feet and up. You thank him for the order and he goes back home. Probably he sold the trees for $25.00 each at least.
That is what you call the wholesale department and its one of the departments that helps to make the nursery business so interesting.
Now take the big tree moving department--well I see quite a few of the members is edging out of the meeting so I will not tell no more. However there is a lot of other interesting departments which I could tell about if the members want to hear.
The president asked the members if they wanted to hear anymore and nobody said yes so there wasnt nothin for me to do but to sit down. Anyway I rigger I done the nurserymen a good turn when I told all the interesting points about bein a nurseryman.
Source: American Nurseryman, 10/15/2000, Vol. 192 Issue 8, p37, 2p
The Civic club in Riverbend asked me to give a paper at the October meeting on interesting facts about the nursery business. We had a series along that line. Last month we had interesting facts about bein a ice man by Hod Williams and before that we had the interesting facts on bein a horse doctor. So my turn come and the president asked me to give a paper. In case there is any nurserymen which has to give papers to there Civic Club they is welcome to use the interesting facts which I have made up. Here is the paper just the way I give it:
Gents: It is a great honor to give this here paper to the different members. Some of you has been out to the nursery, but I would like to see more of you out there to buy stuff. (The president called me on that sentence afterwards, but I figgered to get in a little free advertising.)
Lots of the members thinks all they is to the nursery business is planting bushes and takin them up again and selling the bushes. Of course that is one of the parts of the nursery business, but that aint all.
Only this A.M. a lady called and says my maple tree is covered with a lot of worms with big red eyes and they are crawling all over everything. She wanted me to come and take the bugs away at once. I went down and sneaked up on a couple of worms and took them home in a paper bag. Then I looked em over with a magnifying glass and a microscope. You cant be too careful with worms. I looked the worms up in a lot of books and got the name of the worms but as it was a long name and the members couldnt pronounce it anyway there aint no use to give the name. Then we have got to make up a spray with a lot of drugs and medicine and go up and spray the worms.
That is one reason why any tom dick and harry cant be a nurserymen on account of you have got to be up on the over 6000 kinds of bugs and worms and find out what to spray on em to keep them from crawling over the bushes. I claim that is one of the reasons why the nursery business is interesting on account of the bugs.
Now take it on growing stuff. Sometimes you can grow a tree if you can get some seed but mostly the seed aint no good after you get it. Sometimes you can grow it if you take a cuttin and put it in the ground. But generally the cuttins dont grow if the summer aint real wet and as all the members know you cant tell nothin as to how the summer is going to be.
They is some nurserymen which grows stuff from grafts. That is a tricky way and not many nurserymen knows how to make a graft. Then there is a way to grow stuff from buds but that takes a pretty slick nurseryman too.
Most of the nurserymen dont grow nothing hardly, but makes trades with other nurserymen. If you are a nurseryman down south you go out on a farmers land and you pull up all the trees you want for nothin and then you trade them with some other nurseryman for some other stuff which he has traded with some other nurseryman. One time I checked up on a lot of trees that had changed hands 14 times when we got it. The trick is to get the best of the bargain and that is what makes the nursery business so interestin. You have got to be wide awake all the time to get the best of the trades. That is what we call the propagating department.
A fellow at the F and M Nursery was telling me last spring of a trade he got into and after rive or six trades he got his own stuff back at about 10% of what he sold it for in the first place.
Most of the trades start at the convention. When the nurserymen aint got nothin to do they will sit in the lobby of the hotel and trade stuff back and forth. One time I seen a car of lombardy poplars change hand four times in ten minutes and the same guy got his poplars back with a thousand roses throwed in. I could tell a lot of deals on trades that I have run on to in my time but then I wouldnt have no time to tell about the other interesting things in the nursery business.
Now take the landscape department. That is where a lady calls up and says how much will it cost to put a mulberry tree by the hen house and two spireas in front of the barn. You go down with a paper and a tape measure and you measure it all out. Then you go home and draw it out on a paper. If you are a high class landscaper you color the barn red and color the trees and the grass green. Generally when a landscaper aint making it go you will find he has been cuttin down too much on the colored pencils.
Then you take the plan back to the lady and tell her the job will cost 18.50. "My goodness, aint you folks awful high?" she says. "I was reading in the mail-order catalog where I can get 2 spireas and a mulberry for only 49 post paid for the lot." Then you have got to argue with the lady and finally you agree to put in the job for $3.00, and guarantee it for three years for nothin.
Another thing it helps if the landscaper will send to a male order house and get a pair of high top boots and a pair of army officers pants. It adds dignity to the nurseryman and they wont mistake him for a WPA worker if they see him with a shovel. It takes a lot of high class talent to put on a landscape dept. and thats what makes the nursery business so interesting. I tell you any ordinary mill run farmer cant do it, but there is a lot of em trying to get by.
The male order dept. is a good thing to have in any nursery. Generally you can work off anything that is too runty for the cash and carry dept. or the landscape dept. In the winter you make up a lot of packages of different odds and ends and pack them in some shoe boxes which you can generally pick up for nothin. The best price to sell at is 79. You can put any thing in the box that is laying around the nursery.
I know one nurseryman that makes a good living by hanging around the convention and buying up all the stuff that nobody wants and then he sells it for 79. He has changed his location every year so he dont get a lot of useless correspondence from different people asking foolish questions and making complaints about the fancy stuff that turned out to be asparagus roots and wild cherry roots. But it is a interesting department and most every nurseryman has one someplace around either under his own name or some phony name he made up.
There aint hardly any good up to date nursery that dont have a good agent department. Farmers which has moved in off the farm or preachers which has give up preachin makes the best agents. They aint too fancy and the people like to deal with somebody that dont go in for wearing a necktie and all that fancy stuff. They just drop in, in a friendly way and sell the lady a bleeding hard for 20 and then wind up by talking the lady into a cherry tree and a Irish Juniper.
Agents is all right in a way if you can get one that aint too mouthy and knows how to get around the mail order nurseryman. That is the worst part of it, when you are a agent and have to argue about the male order. In the old days the agents used to send in a order now and then when times was bad with a phony name off a grave stone in the cemetery. But as I say that is one of the reasons that the nursery is an interesting business.
The cash and carry department or the road side stand or sales yard as some calls it is one of the things that makes the nursery business interesting.
In the road side stand you can sell concrete alligators and toad stools and dwarfs, and candy bars and cigars and all kinds of pots and jars and that. One of the bad features to the road side stand is the way people come just as you are starting for the lodge meeting or have got your overhalls and your boots off readin the paper in the evening. They never want what is in the stand but you have got to go out with a lantern into the nursery and dig up what they want. The women is the worst. You cant tell em nothing as they dont know what they want when they see it, and they never want to pay what you ask. We have got a rule out to the nursery to ask $1.50 for any tree and then we can come to 75 and everybody is satisfied.
In the cash and carry you will rind a lot of stuff in baskets and tubs and boxes, but the chances are you dont want any of the stuff which the nurseryman has got out anyway so it dont hardly pay. I know one nurseryman who got so much stuff in boxes and pots on hand that he had to put in a filling station and give away a bush with a gal. of gas. He riggers that in about 4 years he will give enough away to clear out his land so he can begin again in the nursery business. The cash and carry has got a lot of good points and it sure makes the nursery business interestin.
There aint hardly a nursery that amounts to anything that aint got a wholesale department. That is where a nurseryman comes in and the conversation generally starts like this: "One of my men has sold 6 Blue Spruce about 4 feet. He sold them too cheap but it is for a good customer and I have got to rill the order. They dont have to be perfect so I can use some seconds. What could you let me have them for." Say you had in mind gettin $7.00, so you tell him you can have some of the lopsided ones for $4.00. "That's more than I sold em for but I will take em because I have got to fill the order. Maybe I ought to mark the trees so they will all look about alike." Now thats where the trouble comes in. You go out in the nursery and the best of the trees is none too good and he marks them all 6 feet and up. You thank him for the order and he goes back home. Probably he sold the trees for $25.00 each at least.
That is what you call the wholesale department and its one of the departments that helps to make the nursery business so interesting.
Now take the big tree moving department--well I see quite a few of the members is edging out of the meeting so I will not tell no more. However there is a lot of other interesting departments which I could tell about if the members want to hear.
The president asked the members if they wanted to hear anymore and nobody said yes so there wasnt nothin for me to do but to sit down. Anyway I rigger I done the nurserymen a good turn when I told all the interesting points about bein a nurseryman.
Source: American Nurseryman, 10/15/2000, Vol. 192 Issue 8, p37, 2p
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