CHAPTER III 



PREPARING GROUND FOR TRANSPLANTS, AND 

 TRANSPLANTING 



Greencropping Manuring and cleaning crops Preparing ground 

 for the reception of plants The time for transplanting Lining 

 out seedlings and larger transplants Keeping the plants clean 

 Pruning nursery plants Lifting transplants in nursery. 



Green Cropping. 



When land is continually cropped with trees without 

 a break it becomes impoverished, owing to the trees 

 absorbing all or most of the available plant food, without 

 returning it annually with a fall of leaves such as takes 

 place in a forest. The supply must therefore be replaced 

 for the use of future crops. This is done either through 

 the medium of a green crop or by applying farmyard 

 manure and growing a root crop before again lining out 

 transplants. 



Leguminous plants have the power of extracting nitrogen 

 from the air and of giving it off to the soil in a form avail- 

 able as plant food by the aid of bacilli present in the little 

 wartlike tubercles on their roots. 



For this reason they are often used as green-crops in a 

 nursery to enrich soil that has been impoverished by 

 continual cropping of trees. Lupins, lucerne, and tares, 

 are thi plants most commonly used for the purpose. 



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