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spring. This plan has many advantages to commend it. 

 Nurserymen are not likely to be sold out of particular varie- 

 ties. His trees arrive on time. His selection of varieties^ 

 being unhurried, will be made with great discrimination. 

 Late orders are very likely to be unsatisfactory, sometimes 

 to both the nurserymen and the buj^ers. 



Ideal trees and plants cannot always be obtained. la 

 fact they are the exception instead of the rule. It is not 

 difficult, however, to obtain good satisfactory stock if the 

 purchaser insists on having it and pays the price that good 

 stock should bring. The original cost of the tree or plant is 

 the smallest item in the expense of bringing it to fruitage. 

 How often we see farmers, gardeners and fruit growers 

 nursing along a bunch of unthrifty trees that were bought 

 because they were cheap, for ' two or three seasons, spend- 

 ing fifty cents a tree each year on fertilizers, cultivation, 

 spraying, digging out borers, washing, etc., and then find- 

 ing at the end of that time that they were no better off than 

 they would have been at the end of the first season if they 

 had planted good stock! The old adage, ''Poor trees are 

 dear at any price," is well worth remembering when pur- 

 chasing nursery stock. 



Good nursery stock should be free from plant diseases. 

 The diseases most commonly found are crown gall and can- 

 ker on apple trees, crown gall and pear blight on pears, 

 crown gall and anthrocnose (rust) on raspberries and black- 

 berries, and leaf spot (rust) on the strawberry. Crown gall 

 may be recognized by the large swelling immediately be- 

 tween the root and the stem or by the appearance of large 

 knots on the roots. Canker is difficult to detect in nurs- 

 ery stock but if the trees show any signs of winter injury 

 in the nursery, canker will almost certainly appear during 

 the first season. Pear blight may be detected by a black- 

 ened appearance of the twigs extending backAvard from- 

 their tips and stopping with a rather well defined line at 

 some distance from their extremities. Anthrocnose 

 causes canker (sometimes called rust) on the stems of the- 

 brambles. Strawberry leaf spot (rust) is seldom found on 

 trimmed plants. 



Nursery stock should also be free from noxious insects, 

 including San Jose scale. Oyster Shell scale. Brown tail 

 moth nests. Gipsy moth eggs, borers and woolly aphis. 

 The best nurseries send out their goods under inspection 



