One click away. A green world awaits.
As the first commercial horticulture publisher to go online, more than a decade ago, Branch-Smith Publishing has gathered plenty of experience in meeting your needs in print, through e-mail, and on the Web.
Now we're making even more information available to you, in easy-to-find ways. Stop here to see where we've gathered the latest news, along with new entries on the blogs. Shop through our various product locators and classified ads. Rummage through past e-newsletters.
Even look at our magazine pages in PDF. Plus find all our stories in a newly-searchable format. There's more, so start exploring right now. Don't know where to start? Try the Site Map, the right-most item in the menu above.
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A history of responsive publishing
It’s been more than a dozen years since Branch-Smith Publishing took her first step in cyberspace. Let’s see, that would be back when I was only . . . well . . . hmm . . . let’s see . . . younger.
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In 1996, we entered the world of electronic bulletin boards – cumbersome by today’s standards, cutting-edge in those days. We partnered with the Associated Landscape Contractors of America (now merged with another association) to post our All-Industry Horticultural Product Directory in a searchable text format. It was all dial-up in those days, powered by a blazing 2400-baud modem, a real improvement over the 300-baud we started with.
The next year, we signed on with another upstart company to host that Product Directory in the new space called the Internet. People were beginning to use Gopher or something new called Netscape Navigator to poke around this new frontier, which was largely uncharted by any indexing or search capabilities. But it was there, and we were there. It took a tremendous internal effort to isolate one computer in the building where it could be connected to a direct phone line. That phone line led out to the Internet. I remember taking people down to that machine and showing them what this “Internet” looked like. I’m not sure anybody really believed it would amount to anything at that time.
The early vision
Actually, there were a few visionaries. Editor/writers Holly Cuny and Mitch Whitten convinced us we should analyze how to get the publications more active in that area, so the three of us went to a two-day seminar at the Texas A&M Department of Horticulture. There a hands-on demonstration of HTML unshrouded the mysteries of how those Web pages were constructed. We came back, huddled with others, and built an entry strategy. Holly became our first Webmaster, and the Green Beam (www.GreenBeam.com) began its slow evolution from Product Directory to the site it is today.
It wasn’t long before we began launching our weekly news e-mails. It seems hard to believe we’ve been shooting e-news to you for more than a decade.
One early GreenBeam.com favorite area was the Playground, where we created games, puzzles, and a set of multiple-choice questions whose correct answers led to a celebration page. We called it the Maze. Eventually we found a little program that would create custom crossword puzzles out of a list of words we input. Sweet. Yes, you can still get there. Just click HERE.
For several years we had a prize drawing every month from those who registered on our site. In our early days, we promoted the site with a cash contribution to different associations, based on the traffic we generated in a particular month.
New identities emerge
The individual publications had no home pages of their own at first. Internet connections were much, much less common than they are today, so we didn’t want to cut the market too narrow. Eventually, however, pressure built to give each its own identity. The most emphatic effort in that direction was only a couple of years ago, when GCP&S was redesigned and we introduced a GCP&S Web site built from the ground up to have a different look and functionality.
Last summer, we began exploring the future of the Green Beam. It’s been a much longer process than I had ever hoped or imagined. We were overjoyed when we began to see the end is in site, so to speak. Now when you type in www.GreenBeam.com or www.GreenBeamPro.com, you’ll be whisked over to this new generation site – “the professional’s choice.”
Since we have so much exclusive content, the site is built on the news portal concept. A new story will pop up every day and headlines for recent stories will continue to display. Our daily news will feed off a new news blog we developed. Live RSS feeds from our Retailing and our Sustainability blogs will show up as well. It’s instantly searchable, stocked with more than a year’s worth of past content.
Of course, we still have the old content available, too. Just choose Articles, then Archives, from the menu.
More to come
The world has come a long way since 1996. As next generations continue to take the reins of our commercial horticulture, more changes are inevitable. You need wider, deeper and faster.
That's why we're here. One click away. A green world awaits.
- Mike Branch
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A history of creative thinking
Aaron Smith: 1868 - 1950
“Naturally, I’ve been somewhat sensitive about having no arms. But I’ve found out that the same people who stare rudely at me would do something else as rude if I were the same as other people.”
Branch-Smith Publishing grew out of the life of Aaron Smith, a man who was born without arms. He learned to write and type with his toes, earning an attorney’s certificate in 1889. By the early 1900s he was editor of a newspaper before founding Smith Printing.
One of Smith’s printing accounts was Southern Florist magazine, published by a state association. After it ceased publication during World War I when coal was not available to heat greenhouses, Smith and other investors revived it and published it weekly thereafter.
When Smith’s daughter married Oscar Branch, the business entered a second generation. Their son, James, and his wife became the third generation in the business. Today, Smith would be proud of the fourth generation family business he founded.
The old Southern Florist has become four distinct monthly publications, each fine-tuned for a particular market segment. Meanwhile, something called the Internet provides a delivery system for the industry’s first weekly e-mail newsletters and a comprehensive Web site. On the printing side, Branch-Smith was recently recognized for management excellence with the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.
Amazingly, Smith accomplished all these things many decades before the introduction of handicapped-accessible facilities. He did so as the second of nine children, born to a poor rural family.
“Nature made amends for sending Aaron Smith into the world armless by endowing him with high ambition, unfailing patience and a clear brain,” a
Read on for a brief glimpse into the life of the remarkable Aaron Smith.
Childhood memories
Never having known the use of arms and hands, Aaron Smith adapted himself to conditions as he found them and, when quite young, learned to use his feet for hands. When he was a little fellow people for miles around went to the Smith home to see the wonderful baby who could feed himself with his feet.
“Besides his farm, my father operated a little shop in which he made and repaired plows, wagons, some household furniture and even made coffins for the burial of the neighborhood dead,” Smith wrote. “One of my early recollections is hearing him called out of bed early in the morning to make a coffin for a neighbor who had just died. Another recollection is of my mother sitting at an old fashioned hand loom weaving the cloth from which she was to make our clothes. Father had built the loom by hand in his shop.”
From the time Smith was 10 years old, showmen tried to take him on the road, offering him large salaries to exhibit himself as an “armless wonder.” But a newspaper reported later that the idea was so repulsive that he never seriously considered the proposals, although some of them came at a time when he and his family needed money badly.
When a boy at school he often engaged in the sports of his companions, such as ball, croquet, etc., and at one time became quite proficient as a chess player. He could play the guitar and piano well with his toes, and might have been an accomplished musician had it not been for his aversion to making an exhibition of himself, said one newspaper account.
Writing and typing
“It was easy enough to understand that if there was to be any future, it would have to come through training of the head since there were no hands to train,” Smith wrote. “From the time I was 12 I had been giving serious consideration to a life of self-support.”
“I used to go to school the same as the other boys. I had a separate desk my father made for me, and I worked my sums on my slate with a pencil between my toes and then erased them just as the other boys and girls did,” Smith told a newspaper reporter. “When I got into office work and the business world, I learned to write with a pen in my teeth, but my right foot is still my hand and I can use a pencil better with it than in my teeth. I have two distinct ‘handwritings,’ I sometimes tell people.”
Smith used a typewriter by punching the keys with a pencil held in his mouth or his toes, and made excellent speed in this manner. He could also type using his toes.
Modified equipment
In Smith’s office he had two receivers for his telephone, one standard and the other specially fitted, a newspaper reported. “When the telephone rings he lifts the receiver from the hook with his teeth and listens through the one that is fastened to his desk.”
At his home the electric light switches were placed close to the floor so he could manipulate them with his feet.
From education to entrepreneurship
Smith’s parents, though poor, determined to provide their son with opportunities to learn. However, country schools of the day often met for only a few months a year, and were inconsistent in their quality. Eventually, the family moved from
“By the time I was 16 we had decided on law as my profession and I began to look around for books,” Smith wrote. “Along with the law I studied at home English literature, logic, psychology, but never cared as much for history as I should. This reading was done while continuing my attendance at the country school which lasted only three to four months of the year. At 20 I had read the law course through and was well on the way through a second reading when we moved to
A true entrepreneur, Smith actively participated in newspaper and magazine publishing. He owned, published and/or edited the Titus County Times (later Mt. Pleasant Times-Review), the Weatherford Democrat, the National Cooperator and Farm Journal, the Transmitter (a telephone journal), Dry Cleaning & Laundry Progress, Automatic World, Southern Display News, and Southern Florist & Nurseryman.
“The two outstanding reasons which took me into the newspaper field were, first, that I found it very inconvenient to appear in court because I had to call on someone to handle the books and papers to be used; and second, I had always wanted to be a writer. I had an idea, too, that I might carry on in both, since neither was a very big job in that county. At least that was what I thought before I got into the newspaper. Then I found that to carry out my idea of making a county paper more than merely a local gossip sheet required much time and a great deal of reading and thought.”
Family ties
Smith shares the following in his autobiography, about his immediate family:
Mother – “A biographical sketch like this could not be better introduced than by paying brief but no less sincere tribute to the best mother any man ever had. If I have accomplished anything worthwhile, it is due primarily to her inspiration and the self dependence, self confidence and determination she implanted in my soul even from infancy. As I look back through the years in the light of human knowledge and experience her wisdom in encouraging and training me seems no less than divinely inspired.”
Father – “Father was older but had only a few months in country school, but he, too, shared mother’s inspiration and vision of seeing his handicapped son earning his own way. He followed that vision by making every sacrifice and putting forth every effort possible to give me the best education within his reach, considering the demands on him for the support of eight other children.”
Wife – “My next great inspiration was when as a 16-year-old school boy I met a girl whose life brought an enduring light into my life by becoming my wife in later years. Coming from a circle in society in which the power of mind over physical handicaps was fully recognized, she helped me to see clearly what Mother had only seen in her dreams. Later, through our married life her supreme faith in my ability to do anything I undertook, her unselfish love and devotion, her loyalty and her sacrifices have made it possible for me to make whatever I have made of life. On our 25th anniversary [our only child, Carrie Beth] was married to Oscar J. Branch.”
In 1910, Smith sold his publications interests and founded Smith Printing Company. Following World War I, he and other investors revived Southern Florist magazine. When his only child, Carrie Beth, married Oscar Branch, the business entered a second generation. The Branches’ only child, James, and his wife became the third generation in the business. Today James’ three children, Mike, David and Beverly, manage the modern-day Branch-Smith as the fourth generation.
Philosophies of life
Smith shared several other interesting points in his autobiography and interviews:
“My only regret of an entire lifetime is that as I look back over the years, one by one, I see so little of lasting worth in what I have accomplished.”
“Naturally, I’ve been somewhat sensitive about having no arms. But I’ve found out that the same people who stare rudely at me would do something else as rude if I were the same as other people.”
“I used to have a big cigar box filled with marbles I won from [boys in Queen City,
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