26 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN. 
I will not undertake to tell you. It has been the universal 
experience of nurser)mien that when they had gained a com¬ 
plete knowledge by several years of close study and much 
labor, the following season w'ould only convince them that 
they were wrong and were just where they stood before 
making this circle of experience. There are many things 
that will in a very short time undo what you have spent 
much time and patient'labor to perfect. Perhaps that which 
has more to do with success than any other one thing is 
thorough cultivation. First, deep plowing, not six inches, 
but a foot, if you can accomplish it. Don’t plow under 
clods to torment you the whole season through. It is a 
good plan when dry to harrow the surface before plowing. 
Fine dirt is what holds the moisture. Good, thorough, level 
cultivation is more conducive to good growth of stock than 
anything else. 
“ An ardent, enthusiastic man, who, I believe, was a 
lover of fruit and fruit trees, once told me he planted 80,000 
apple grafts out in the northern-central part of the state, 
and secured a good stand, but when they grew to about 
eight inches or a foot, all died ; the next year 40,000 ; the 
next 20,000, when he gave up in despair. He thought they 
were killed by hot winds. Afterward, seeing an example 
of his cultivation here in the valley of the Kaw, I knew 
they were killed by neglect. When it gets so dry and hot 
in this valley that corn begins to wilt and the farmers begin 
to complain, then we get the most satisfactory results in our 
nursery work. The dryer it gets the more thoroughly and 
the deeper should we cultivate and we will give you a tree 
with more health and vigor than we can when the rain 
maker overdoes his job. Too much moisture is not con¬ 
ducive to health and growth in nursery stock. Trees are 
more liable to disease in wet seasons and insects seem to be 
more injurious at such times. Those who have lived in the 
great Basin of Utah and Colorado say they have no trouble 
from this source and are much more successful if left to 
furnish all their moisture by irrigation. 
“ Very many of the failures in orchard planting can be 
attributed to bad care after planting. Weeds and trees w^ere 
not made to grow on the same ground at the same time. 
A great deal of the trouble though can be charged to the 
bad handling of stock before it leaves the nursery. A care¬ 
less nurseryman can soon kill what he has spent a long 
time and much money to mature. 
“ If trees are taken from the nursery in the fall they 
should be well grouted as soon as they are lifted from the 
nursery row, then heeled in, care being taken to carefully 
pack the dirt about the roots. In the spring the soil is gen¬ 
erally more favorable, and the conditions being reversed 
naturally, better success can be obtained even when less care 
is exercised. 
“ When nursery stock is received in a frozen condition, 
if in boxes and well packed, don’t disturb it. If convenient, 
place in a dark cellar and allow frost to come out slowly. 
If dry, add water, or if you can bury in moist earth and 
allow it to remain till perfectly thawed out, then it can more 
than likely be planted without injury. 
“ P'inally, in closing this paper, I think it can safely be 
said, that there is no other business or profession which is 
at times so irksome, and yet so fascinating ; so liable to dis¬ 
appointment and yet so promising ; so useful and yet at the 
same time so much blamed for treacherous dealings. The 
dollar made in the nursery business is a very uncertain one 
up to the time it is safely in the pocket and it is seldom 
crowded for room when once there. Nurserymen as a class 
are honest, and try very hard to give a dollar’s worth for 
every hundred cents you pay. They generally sell you 
true to name though the cases are numerous when the 
opposite has been done. A great many people have been 
fooled so often that they buy with no idea of getting any¬ 
thing other than what is given them. It is true a great 
many men are like children, they want what they should 
not have. One man asked me for Early Harvest and when 
assured that he could not get the tree, looked at me with 
an amused expression, saying that it would be no disappoint¬ 
ment to him not to get them, as he had bought and planted 
twice before and both times got something else instead. 
“ The man who would give me a thorn for a rose ; a 
peach tree for a flowering almond ; a winter sort for a sum¬ 
mer variety, I would drive from my door as rudely as I 
would him who would steal the bread intended for my chil¬ 
dren. He not only gives me what I do not want but robs 
me of valuable time that can never be regained.” 
ADVICE TO THE PLANTER. 
It is natural that hardy trees and plants should be in 
demand ; and the fruit-tree fakirs are quick to take ad¬ 
vantage of this, and “work” the trade for all there is in 
it, says Professor S. C. Mason in the Industrialist. 
“ Prove all things and hold fast that which is good,” 
does not mean buy every new “ iron-clad ” that is of¬ 
fered at four prices. The latest thing that the tree-ped¬ 
dling gentry are offering to a needy public is the peach 
budded on “ Canadian stocks,” whatever those may be, 
with the assurance that the sap in such trees “goes 
down ” when winter comes, presumably so deep as to 
be out of reach of such sudden cold snaps as the one 
lately experienced. The modest price of fifty cents per 
tree, one-half down and the balance the third year, pro¬ 
vided the trees bear, will doubtless find many takers. 
The lamented showman, P. T. Barnum, proved himself 
a great philosopher when he said that the American 
people like to be humbugged. That the average 
American farmer is not entirely behind the rest of his 
countrymen in such matter is proved by the number of 
“frost-proof” “blight-proof,” “drought-proof,” and 
otherwise indestructible nursery material the agents are 
able to take orders for. 
