44 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
PROUD OF THE BUSINESS 
William C. Barry, Addressing the Western New York Retailers, 
Praises the Work of the Nurseryman and Shows Its 
Great Value to the Planter. 
William C. Barry, of the firm of Ellwanger & Barry, Roches¬ 
ter, addressing the newly formed association of retail nursery¬ 
men, said: 
“Ours is a business of which we may well be proud. Dur¬ 
ing the sixty or seventy-five years that the nursery business 
has been in progress in this country much good has been accom¬ 
plished. What if there had been no business of this kind? 
What would have been done with the barren ground? What 
would we have lost without the orchards of the country? 
What the conditions are with all these things you know, 
and you can appreciate the value of them by the comparison 
which I have suggested. You who saw the apple trees laden 
with their crops last fall will never forget the sight. The 
fruits were more beautiful than I have ever seen them; they 
were more highly colored. These Western New York apples 
are now sent all over the world. They command admiration 
in the remotest parts of the earth. Think of the many who 
use them, how they are prized and admired and how they 
attract attention to our section of the country. 
“All this is the result of the work of the nurseryman and 
the efforts of his canvassers. We think some canvassers are 
not up to our ideals and we seek to educate them. Many 
of them do not get up to the mark; yet some who started 
selling trees have become great organizers through their ex¬ 
perience in approaching men. 
“The nursery business is being conducted today in such a 
manner that we may be continually prouder of its achieve¬ 
ments. The business is increasing from year to year and with 
greater safety to the planter. The nurseryman are affording 
the means for the orchardist to increase the value of his land 
and to derive a steady income. You should do all in your 
power to extend this business. Yours is a business for the 
welfare of mankind. How much better is this business than 
some others that we know of. I congratulate you on the 
successful launching of this organization and hope it will live 
long and prosper.” 
CHEAP RATES AND THROUGH SLEEPERS TO THE 
ATLANTA CONVENTION. 
Nurserymen and their friends going to Atlanta, Ga., to attend the 
National Convention in June are advised that specially reduced rates 
will be arranged for this occasion by the railroads interested. Through 
sleeping cars will be operated from Rochester, via the Northern Central 
to Washington, D. C., thence via the Southern Railway to Atlanta. 
For those delegates who come from Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, etc., 
through sleeping cars will be operated from Cincinnati, via the Queen 
& Crescent Route through Chattanooga, thence Southern Railway. 
Persons desiring berths in these cars should communicate promptly 
with Mr. C. L. Yates, business manager, at Rochester, or with repre¬ 
sentatives of the Queen & Crescent Route at Cincinnati, or with L. S. 
Brown, general agent, Southern Ry., Washington, D. C., C. L. Hopkins, 
I)PA, Southern Ry., Philadelphia, A. S. Thweatt, eastern passenger 
agent, Southern Ry., 271 and 1185 Broadway, New York, and full 
information will be furnished. 
Central Michigan Nurseries, Kalamazoo, Mich.—“There is too 
much value in the National Nurseryman for us to get along without 
it. Enclosed find draft for $1 to cover renewal for the coming year.” 
EXHAUSTING NURSERY LANDS. 
In a communication to the Gardener’s Chronicle, London, 
England, J. J. Willis, of Harpenden, says: 
The result of a test shows that but a small amount of plant 
food is removed from the soil by the growth of nursery stock. 
The most exhausting tree is the apple; the next is the pear; 
but any ordinary fertile soil, cultivated as nursery lands 
usually are, should easily furnish in three years ten times 
the amount of plant food used by the trees. 
Two reasons have been assigned for the failure to raise 
successfully nursery stock continuously on the same land. 
The first is, that the trees have exhausted all the readily 
available plant food, and since nursery stock, to be at its 
best, must have an early and rapid growth, it is impossible 
without weathering the land and allowing some of the plant- 
food in the subsoil to rise to the surface, to secure satisfactory 
results. It should be kept in mind in this connection that 
under proper culture and conditions, in dry weather, nitro¬ 
genous plant-food rises from the sub-soil to near the surface, 
while in very wet weather it may pass from the surface down¬ 
wards. 
Nursery trees get a large proportion of their nourishment 
from the subsoil, and during the few years that the ground 
is occupied by them a portion of the available plant food in 
the subsoil is used. This would explain in part the difficulty 
of using land continuously for growing young trees. 
The digging of the trees is usually performed late in the 
autumn or early in the spring, when the soil is little better 
than a mortar-bed. The digging and tramping, especially on 
clay soils, when the land is in this condition, puddle it, and the 
larger part of the available plant-food is thereby locked up; 
and it requires one or two years of culture, and even manuring, 
to bring the land back to its normal condition. But all these 
explanations do not fully account for the imperfect growth of 
the second crop of trees, for after having removed the trees 
from the land, if it be thoroughly ploughed and cultivated, 
there appears to be no difficulty in raising a good crop of 
wheat, barley, grass or potatoes. 
In the haste to get the trees off at as early a period as pos¬ 
sible, the grower is not satisfied unless they are making a 
rapid, continuous growth; that is, he asks more of the land in 
his method of culture than does the wheat or potato grower; 
and therefore, as soon as the land hesitates in the least when 
planted with a second crop of trees, he puts it down as a par¬ 
tial failure. 
This explanation is emphasized by the fact that many 
orchardists have come to believe that nursery trees under 
present .management are forced so rapidly, and make such 
soft growth of wood, that they are injured thereby. Those 
trees which have been forced to unusual growth, when set in 
the orchards under less favorable conditions than were present 
in the nursery row, start slowly, and frequently are unable to 
make a satisfactory growth of good wood for two or three 
years. 
It has been found that an application of wood-ashes and 
lime (air-slacked), 25 to 30 bushels per acre, greatly assists the 
land in maintaining a nursery stock of fruit-trees. Apple- 
wood always improves with wood-ashes and lime, even on 
limestone lands. 
