NURSERY 



NURSERY 



2293 



two to five years, becomes void of humus, and the dig- 

 ging of the stock when the land is wet or unfit to be 

 worked tends to impair the physical character of the soil. 

 Experiments have shown that commercial fertilizers 

 will not always reclaim lands which have been treed, 

 whereas barn manures and green crops may go very 

 far towards revitalizing them. As a result of inability 

 to grow vigorous stock on treed land, a large part of the 

 nursery stock of the country, particularly fruit trees, 

 is grown on rented land. On the nurseryman's central 

 grounds a variety of stock may be grown, chiefly orna- 

 mentals, but the larger part of the commercial fruit 

 stock is farmed out to persons who are willing to rent 

 their land for this purpose and who will give the requis- 

 ite attention to the growing trees. 



The industry has developed special tools without 

 which nursery stock cannot be grown on a commercial 

 scale. The simplest of these are budding- and grafting- 

 knives of various kinds to meet the needs of different 

 plants and the whims of users. There are also special 

 hoes for planting and spades for digging, the latter with 



2537. View in an American apple tree nursery. 



strongly reinforced handles and heavy blades of the 

 best steel. Several tools in common use in subsoiling 

 and cultivating are peculiar to nursery work. Still 

 more specialized are the tree-diggers, requiring con- 

 siderable power, drawn usually by four to eight teams, 

 by traction engines, or by stationary engines at the 

 end of the row which draw the digger by winding up a 

 cable on a drum. Fall digging makes it necessary to 

 strip the leaves of many trees, a task formerly per- 

 formed by hand, but many growers now strip in a spe- 

 cially made machine after the trees are dug. Besides 

 these, various devices are used in packing and boxing. 



Winter storage. (U. P. Hedrick.) 



Nurserymen in the North almost universally dig tree-, 

 bush- and vine-fruits, as well as many ornamentals, 

 in autumn and store through the winter in frost- 

 proof houses of one kind or another. The best of these 

 houses are built much as are cold-storage plants in 

 fact, some have facilities for refrigeration. By far the 

 greater number of them, however, are storage cellars. 

 The objects gained by winter storage are protection 

 against mice and rabbits, prevention of injury through 

 freezing and the wide fluctuations in temperature in 

 northern winters, and greater convenience in making 

 spring shipments. The most satisfactory results are 

 secured when the stock is kept at a uniform temperature 

 as near freezing as possible. Thus, at 28 to 34 F., 

 above zero, very little ventilation is necessary, the trees 

 dry out and shrivel but little, there is a minimum ten- 

 dency to mildew, and packing material about the roots 

 and spraying with water are usually not necessary. At 

 lower temperatures, injury from freezing begins, and 

 at higher ones the storage-house must be ventilated, 

 the trees sprayed, their roots protected, and fungi do 

 serious damage. Undoubtedly the storage of stock 

 benefits the nurseryman more than the fruit-grower; 

 for it is because of the drying out, more or ,less of which 



always takes place, or other injury in poorly managed 

 storage, that trees so often come to the grower with 

 barely the breath of life. 



The extent of the nursery business. 



Statistics covering the general range of the United 

 States nursery business were published in Bulletin No. 

 109 of the Eleventh Census (for 1890). The census enu- 

 merated the items of 4,510 nurseries, occupying 172,806 

 acres and representing a valuation of $41,978,835.80. 

 The total capital invested was about $52,500,000. 

 These establishments employed 45,657 men, 2,279 

 women, and 14,200 animals. The total number of plants 

 and trees was 3,386,858,778, which figure does not 

 include unenumerated plants on 1,477 acres of nursery 

 grounds. Of this enormous total, fruit trees comprised 

 518,016,612 plants, and grape-vines and small-fruits 

 685,603,396. Apple trees alone, the highest figure 

 given for a single species, numbered 240,570,666. It is 

 probable that these early figures are not comparable in 

 statistical value with those of succeeding censuses. It 

 would be interesting to speculate as to the destiny of 

 these trees and plants. It is safe to assume that each 

 plant in this uncountable number was the subject of 

 thought and solicitude on the part of the propagator; 

 yet it is probable that not one in a hundred has lived to 

 bring satisfactory reward to the buyer. It has been 

 estimated that the apple trees standing in orchards in 

 the United States at the close of the century were 

 100,000,000, or less than half the number growing in 

 the nurseries in 1890. The elements of loss are many, 

 but the greater part of the failures occur after the stock 

 has passed to the hands of the final purchaser. 



In the Twelfth Census (1900), "there were 2,029 

 commercial nurseries in the United States. Within 

 the past decade many small nurseries have been con- 

 solidated and numerous others have been absorbed by 

 the larger companies." "In many of the western states 

 the owners of large orchards propagate from the stand- 

 ard varieties they have on hand the stock they require 

 in enlarging their acreage of fruit trees. This has not 

 been taken into account in compiling the statistics of 

 nurseries because the income from this labor would be 

 credited to sale of fruit and not to sale of trees." The 

 total area was 165,780 acres, with 137,459 acres, or 82.9 

 per cent, improved. The average size of the nursery 

 establishments was 81.7 acres, although a number of 

 500-acre tracts were operated. "The value of land, 

 buildings, and other improvements was $18,144,073, 

 the former value being $13,880,820 and the latter 

 $4,263,253. The average value an acre of the land was 

 $84. The value of buildings was much smaller for the 

 nursery establishments than for the florists' establish- 

 ments, and the value of live-stock much larger. This 

 is due to the fact that nursery operations are much the 

 same as in other farming. The value of implements 

 was $539,895 and of live-stock, $462,013. The total 

 value of products was $10,086,136 and $139,512 was 

 expended for fertilizers and $2,305,270 for labor. One 

 of the heaviest expenses of the nursery growers was 

 that for labor, the amount constituting 22.9 per cent 

 of the value of the product, a much larger proportion 

 than is involved in the raising of other crops, except 

 flowers and plants. The total value of products com- 

 prised $9,231,503 from nursery stock and $854,633 

 from general farm produce. Distributed among the 

 2,029 establishments reporting, it gives an average 

 value of product of $4,971. The value of products 

 fed was $192,999, a considerably larger proportion than 

 for the florists. 



"Of the several geographic divisions, the North 

 Central ranks first, many new nurseries having been 

 established to meet the greatly increased demand for 

 nursery products in the West. In the North Central 

 division there were 836 establishments, with a total 

 value of products not fed to live-stock of $3,892,668. 



