FERTILITY OF NURSERY LANDS. 139 



by the general laws of trade, and lies outside the field of 

 the present discussion. 



Nursery Lands. The best land for general nursery pur- 

 poses is one which is heavy rather than light, containing a 

 good percentage of clay, and lying as nearly level as pos- 

 sible. Before trees are put upon it, the land should be 

 deeply and thoroughly worked for at least one season, and 

 if it is of such character as to hold surface water for two or 

 three days at a time, the area should be thoroughly tile- 

 drained. Nursery trees constitute a crop which occupies 

 the land for a number of years, and unless this land is in 

 good heart when the trees are planted, there will be little 

 opportunity to raise a good product. With fruit trees, the 

 age of the tree determines its salableness ; hence it is im- 

 perative that the growth within the given time be rapid and 

 strong. With ornamentals, however, the value is deter- 

 mined by the size of the specimen, with little reference to 

 its age. It therefore follows that lands which are not suf- 

 ficiently strong to allow of the profitable growing of fruit 

 trees may still be useful for growing ornamentals. In con- 

 sidering the question of the fertility of nursery lands, it is 

 first necessary to determine what are the proportions of the 

 chief elements of plant food which the trees remove from 

 the soil. Roberts ( Bulletin 103, Cornell Experiment Sta- 

 tion) gives the following figures upon this point :* 



"Amounts and values of fertilizing constituents re- 

 moved by an acre of nursery trees in three years : 



Apples. ' Pears. Peaches. Plums. 



Lbs. Value. Lbs. Value. Lbs. Value. Lbs. Value. 



Nitrogen 29.07 $4 36 24.83 $3 73 22.42 $3 36 19.75 $2 9 6 



Phosphoric acid . . 10.13 71 7.83 54 5.42 38 4.42 31 

 Potash 19.73 89 13.33 60 11.75 53 "-50 S 2 



$5 96 $4 87 |4. 27 $3 79 



"The above results show conclusively that but a small 

 amount of plant food is removed from the soil by the 

 growth of nursery stock. They also show that more phos- 

 phoric acid is removed by the apples and pears than by 

 *See, also, loth Rep. N. Y. State Exp. Sta., pp. 162-174 



