182 The Principles of Fruit -growing. 



The nursery crop occupies the land for three to five years. 

 During all this time the land receives no addition of organic 

 matter, and finally even the roots are taken out of it. In 

 very many cases the trees are planted and dug when the soil 

 is wet or very dry, and, it is therefore, quickly and very se- 

 riously injured in its "grain," or its physical condition. 



Nurserymen find that if the land is rested in clover or 

 grass for a few years it will again grow trees. This rota- 

 tion, like all others, is a means of ameliorating the physical 

 condition of the soil as well as the chemical condition of 

 it. A part of the rotation must aim at the incorporation of 

 humus. Therefore, every famous rotation has a "rest" crop in it. 



An incidental advantage of any rotation is the variety of 

 tillage imposed by it. A rotation of tools and of methods 

 and seasons of working the land, is often as important ;;s 

 the other results of alternate cropping. 



Extended figures of chemical analyses* of nursery stock 

 show that the amounts of potash, phosphoric acid and nitro- 

 gen which such stock removes from the land is really very 

 small, and less than that removed by similar bulk or weight 

 of corn or wheat. Experiments now being made show that 

 the addition of concentrated or chemical manures to heavy 

 nursery lands does not promise very important results ; but 

 there are greater hopes from experiments in the sowing of 

 crimson clover and other cover crops in the nursery rows, 

 and in the use of stable manures. There are instances of 

 excellent results following the addition of stable manure to 

 nursery lands between the trees in the fall. One piece of 

 land so treated has grown excellent plum trees for twenty 

 consecutive years. There is no necessary reason why nursery 

 stock should not follow nursery stock as well as wheat fol- 

 low wheat, except that the land is usually more clay-like, 

 the rotation or cropping is longer, and the addition of humus 

 or fiber to the soil is less. 



d. The conclusions. The difficulty, then, is not one of amount 



Consult 10th Rep. N. Y. State Exp. Sta. (1891), and Bull. 103, Cornell 

 Exp. Sta.; also Rep. Amer. Assoc. Nurserymen, 1896, 43-45. 



