Treatment of Nursery Lands. 183 



of plant-food so much as of the availability of that food by 

 improving the physical conditions of the soil. The soil must 

 be warm, soft, mellow, and the plant must be comfortable. 



The trouble is, not that nursery trees take so much from 

 the soil, but that the rotation is too long, the fiber is burned 

 out of the soil, and much of the working of the land is 

 untimely. 



Certain lands are not readily injured by nursery cultiva- 

 tion, and these may grow several continuous crops of trees. 



Now and then the nurseryman can augment the growth 

 of his stock by extra attention to tillage (it is assumed that 

 he always tills well), and by the addition of some quick 

 nitrogen compound, as nitrate of soda ; but these are gener- 

 ally only temporary correctives. The complete or fundamental 

 corrective for nursery land is rotation ; but the length of 

 this rotation may often be shortened, or even entirely re- 

 duced, by the judicious intercultural use of stable manures 

 and cover crops. 



The conclusion was made that the physical condition of 

 the soil is a subject of greater or earlier importance than 

 its chemical constitution ; that the value of rotation of crops 

 lies largely in its ameliorating effect upon the physical con- 

 dition, and that nursery lands are no exception in demand- 

 ing such rotation. Instead of thinking it strange that trees 

 do not readily follow trees, we should rather think it strange 

 if they did. Because the crop is of several years' duration, 

 it becomes necessary that the alternating cropping should also 

 be extended. A system of rotations must be practiced in 

 blocks of years, not in single years. But this alternating 

 cropping can be greatly shortened by giving greater attention 

 to the addition of fiber to the soil while the nursery stock 

 is growing. There are instances in which the alternation 

 may be made short, and some in which there need be hardly 

 any. Professor Bailey said that he did not look for a gen- 

 eral corrective of the depletion of nursery land, therefore, by 

 the addition of concentrated or chemical fertilizers, but by 

 better management of the lands. 



