176 THE NURSERY-MANUAL 



husbandry, the following statement will be useful : The amount 

 of green corn necessary to remove an equal amount of fertilizing 

 ingredients per acre, taking the average of the value of the 

 nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash ($4.72) removed by an 

 acre of the trees (3 years' growth), would be 4,779 pounds. 



"Silage corn raised in drills usually yields from 12 to 20 tons 

 per acre, and yet does not make drafts on the land which pre- 

 clude duplicating the yield the following season; hence some 

 other cause than soil exhaustion must be found if the failure 

 to grow a second crop of nursery trees without intermediate 

 crops is explained." These conclusions are supported in an- 

 alyses made by the New York State Station (Geneva) . 



All experience proves that a crop of nursery trees does not 

 exhaust the land of its fertility. In fact, it is generally con- 

 sidered that land from which trees have just been removed is 

 in good condition and heart for a crop of beans, wheat or 

 potatoes. Yet, despite this fact, it is also generally considered 

 that land can seldom raise two good crops of nursery trees in 

 succession. Land that has been "treed" must be "rested" 

 in grass or some other crop. This disposition of land to refuse 

 to grow two consecutive crops of good trees is not an invariable 

 rule, however. Nursery lands have produced good plum trees 

 for twenty consecutive years. One frequently sees lands 

 yielding apple and cherry stocks for two or three crops in suc- 

 cession. Plums seem to be particularly amenable to this 

 consecutive cropping, and they are benefited by applications 

 of stable manure. Some other species, as, for example, the 

 pear, do not take so kindly to treatment with manure. Be- 

 cause of this common experience with indifferent trees grown 

 on treed land, nurserymen with a large business prefer to rent 

 land for the growing of trees. 



The chief reason for this condition of treed lands seems to 

 be that the soil is injured in its physical texture and robbed 

 of its humus by the methods of cultivation and treatment. 



