Re: A moral question
- Subject: Re: A moral question
- From: &* M* <n*@hotmail.com>
- Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2004 18:29:28 -0500
Hi Glen,
First, it's the wholesale nurseries that handle getting the labels
made, so it would be up to them. Most marketing decisions are left to the
nurseries and rightly so because they know marketing much better than we
hybridizers do. Would they go for the idea? My guess is probably not. The
hybridizers aren't celebrities except maybe in hosta circles. TV garden show
hosts make it onto plant labels, but that's about all I've seen there. I
doubt they would see having the hybridizer's name on the plant as being much
draw for the average gardeners who make up most of the customers.
Another potential problem for them would be the idea that TC plants
approved by the hybridizer are better than the ones that aren't. The TC labs
still shy away from admitting that sometimes bad batches make it to the
public. They seem to think that admitting that some are bad would ruin all
their sales. They pretty much like to keep repeating that all TC plants are
perfect copies, so if they say that some are more perfect then some must be
not-so-perfect. Remember, these are the people who keep selling nasty,
highly invasive weeds as "establishes quickly and soon forms an attractive
mound". Their plants aren't average, good, and great - they are super,
superior, and supreme.
The TC plants are moved from lab to wholesaler to retailer to you so
quickly that no one ever sees a mature plant from that TC batch until years
after they are sold.There would be no way for the hybridizer to know if
their plant was successfully copied without the time to observe it. For
example, go to the HostaLibrary entry for 'Liberty'. You know hostas pretty
well. If the plant was yours and it looked like the first two photos and you
were given the third one to evaluate, could you say one way or the other
whether it will turn out to be true when it grows up?
Lastly is the question of social conscience. Well, usually this is
not a concept they would grasp unless it meant more profits. I'm not sure
how we could convince them it would mean more profits. Do you have any ideas
on that one?
.......Bill Meyer
> One of the fun things about writing for the robin is that one never has a
> clue what others will read into what one wrote, how they will respond (if
> they indeed do), and where the thread will lead. We all read with blinders
> on.
>
> Since I am clearly too addled to respond to all the statements about
> morality, ethics, patents, rights, and Machiavellian business
> philosophies, I would simply like to repeat my motive for writing what I
> did. Sparring with Chick and Bill is just frosting on the cake....but
> always a treat.
>
> Quite simply I would like the hybridizer of a hosta to put his/her label
> on it indicating that he/she has approved that particular TC process. I am
> much more apt to buy this plant because I know that just perhaps a few
> pennies are going back to the person that bred the plant despite the fact
> that it may be appearing in a nusery near me. If hybridizers would adopt
> this idea, one would quickly know if the transcaction actually involved
the
> person who originated the plant. This does not seem complicated to me. It
> may not be a good idea but it seems downright Charlie-Brown-simple.
> Although I have learned to expect that Lucy is always lurking in the
> undergrowth just waiting to give it a twist I had not imagined.
>
> glen
>
> "History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes.""Even a lie is a psychic
> fact." -Carl Jung, psychiatrist (1875-1961)
>
> Glen Williams
> 20 Dewey St.
> Springfield , Vermont
> 05156
> Tel: 802-885-2839
>
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