THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
12() 
kinds olTered in both. In tlie one palms, bamboos, 
ficus, pandanus, draceanas, orange trees, bananas, cof¬ 
fee trees and such like plants predominate, while in the 
other spruces, pines, junipers, deciduous trees and dow¬ 
ering slirubbery of the north form the bulk of the items. 
Althougb we are not all widely traveled, we know that 
horticulturally speaking, due to latitude and altitude, our 
country reaches from the Arctic Circle nearly to the 
tropics and we have a corresponding flora, but we do not 
always act on this knowledge in a business way. We 
are apt to. distribute our catalogues and advertise our 
goods as if the whole country climatically was the same. 
Scarcely a day passes without some 
THE SITUATION notice of quarantine coming 
through the mails, either Federal or 
State. These, combined with embargoes, make the nur¬ 
seryman wish he had chosen some other business. Very 
ominous rej)orts are coming in from different localities in 
regard to the shipping situation and it begins to look as if 
the nurseryman would not be able to distribute even what 
few orders were on hand and employ even the limited 
amount of labor that is available. As far as the nur¬ 
seryman is concerned, he is certainly going through 
troublesome times. There are fat years or periods and 
lean ones in every line of business. Just at present there 
are many lines making more profit than ever they did be¬ 
fore. If a business is able to lay enough by during pros¬ 
perous times the lean years do not work such a hardship 
but with the nursery business, due to varying conditions, 
there are seldom very profitable periods. 
Now is the time to do some hard thinking. 
There is nothing beats adversity, as a teacher, and if 
the nurseryman cannot make a good profit in prosperous 
times how is he going to‘‘carry on”during the lean years'? 
Such experiences as we are going through at the pres¬ 
ent, points very straight at the one great need, namely, 
sufficient co-operation to insure them getting the maxi¬ 
mum from their goods when the getting is good. The 
line of stock the nurseryman produces is not such as 
can be kept over, usually if it isn’t sold the same year that 
it is ready for market, it is dead loss, and this reason 
alone should convince everyone of the need of some cen¬ 
tral control of production to prevent waste. 
St. Paul, Minn., February 28, 1918. 
The National NurseiTinan, 
V 7 
Ilatboro, Pa. 
Dear Sirs:— 
Enclosed you will please find money order of $1.50 for 
another year’s subscription. Having been out of town 
for the last three months I have neglected my subscrip¬ 
tion. I certainly miss the last issues. I do not wish to be 
without your journal as I find them quite interesting. 
Very truly yours, 
R. Kramer, 
498 North Milton St. 
OVERCOMING DIFFICULTIES IN TREE PLANTING 
By F. Xorman Supplee, Landscape Engineer 
At the Cheshire Hunt Club Kennels, at Unionville, Pa., 
owned by Mr. W. Plunkett Stewart, considerable land¬ 
scape development was undertaken. 
A farm, perhaps two hundred years old, had been pur¬ 
chased on which the original mansion stood and the lane 
leading up to it was lined by 150 year old pines. With 
here a branch gone, there a top taken out by some severe 
storm, but stalwart, though gnarled, they still raised their 
grand heads to face the storms of the four winds. Mr. 
Stewart, realizing that some day these old fellows must 
go, decided to plant some young evergreens to take their 
places and then to continue from where this lane struck 
the public road right on up into the opposite field with 
another lane of evergreens to the kennels. 
In order to give a pleasanter treatment around the 
manse, it was decided to plant a screen separating it 
from the barn, and to make the houndsman’s cottage 
more picturesque, some planning to soften its outlines 
and to tone down its color was made. The owner alsu 
decided upon some foundation planting around the base 
of the manse, with an immense group of 150 year old 
box in the circle of the driveway. 
In the planting of the trees along the old lane, it wa& 
found to be practically impossible to dig with any ex¬ 
pediency among the old pine tree roots. Up the new lane 
a ledge of rock of mica formation was struck, and in the 
screen between the manse and the barn a stratum of 
ground, composed of large stones and clay, hammered 
into place ,it might be said, by the wear and tear of years; 
therefore, dynamiting, as an easy way out, was decided 
upon. One-third of a stick was used for each shot with 
one and a half foot of fuse. Two men made the holes and 
one man cut and prepared the charges, and two men 
placed the charges in the bore holes. Two hundred and 
fifty trees were planted in two days with this force. 
The nursery had offered a price of $1.50 each for the 
planting wdien they realized the obstacles they were up 
against. The total cost of planting with dynamite, includ¬ 
ing the cost of it, was $98.50. Only nineteen trees were 
lost out of the two hundred and fifty, and that was more 
due to the fact that that year was the driest summer that 
we had had in forty years. 
The next year the trees made a foot of new wood. Some 
of the evergreens w^ere ten feet in height. Two years 
have now gone by since the planting was done and the 
trees planted with dynamite are a foot taller than trees 
of larger size w^hich were planted a year previous to this 
planting but with pick and shovels. 
The Secretary of Agriculture and the Food Adminis¬ 
tration at Washington are calling for the eradication of 
the Common Barberry, Berberis vulgaris, and its var¬ 
ieties, which is claimed to be a host for the Wheat Rust. 
It is estimated the Rust caused a loss of a hundred million 
bushels in the Upper Mississippi Valley States in 1916. 
It seems the rust does not affect the Berberis Thiinbergii. 
Nurserymen should avoid shipping Berberis vulgaris into 
wheat-growing districts. 
