112 The Principles of Fruit-growing 



considered; and one of these means is to apply plant-food 

 materials. 



The lesson of nursery lands. 



The injurious effects of leaving soils bare, and of 

 tilling at untimely seasons, are well illustrated in most 

 nursery plantations. The best nursery lands are the 

 "strong" lands, or those containing a basis of clay, and 

 these are the ones that soonest suffer under unwise treat- 

 ment. The nursery land is kept under clean culture, and it 

 is, therefore, deeply pulverized. There is practically no 

 herbage on the land to protect it in the winter. When 

 the crop is removed, even the roots are taken out of the 

 earth. For four or five years, the land receives practically 

 no vegetation that can rot and pass into humus; and more- 

 over, the trees are dug in the fall, often when the soil is 

 in unfit condition, and this fall digging amounts to a fall 

 plowing. The soil, deeply broken and robbed of its humus, 

 runs together and cements before the following summer; 

 and it then requires three or four years of "rest" in clover 

 or other herbage to bring it back into its rightful condition. 

 This resting-period allows Nature — if man grants her the 

 privilege — to replace the fiber in the soil, and to make it 

 once more so open and warm and kindly that plants may 

 find a congenial root-hold in it. 



Chemical analyses of nursery stock show that the 

 amounts of potash, phosphoric acid and nitrogen that such 

 stock removes are really very small, and less than those 

 removed by a similar bulk or weight of corn or wheat. 

 Experiments with the addition of concentrated or chemical 

 manures to heavy nursery lands seem not to have shown 

 very important results; but there are greater hopes from 

 the sowing of crimson clover and other cover-crops in the 



