THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
103 
IOWA NURSERYMEN S ASSOCIATION 
The Iowa Nurserymen’s Association is just being or¬ 
ganized into a strong organization for the purpose of 
promoting ‘ Plant a Tree” movement in the State of 
Iowa. The idea is not only to promote planting but to 
help those interested in planting to secure hardy and 
desirable varieties of fruit trees and shrubs suitable to 
their locality. 
A membership campaign is soon to be launched and 
it is hoped that every legitimate nurseryman in the state 
will join the association. 
The 1922 officers of the Iowa Nurserymen’s Associa¬ 
tion are: President, Earl Ferris, Hampton, Iowa; vice 
president, H. L. Merkel, Capital City Nurseries, Des 
Moines, Iowa; secretary-treasurer, R. S. Herrick, State 
House, Des Moines, Iowa. The Membership Committee 
consists of Mr. E. S. Welch, president of the Mt. Arbor 
Nurseries, Shenandoah, Iowa; Mr. Earl Ferris, of Hamp¬ 
ton, and Mr. H. L. Merkel of Des Moines. 
The Iowa Nurserymen s Association is affiliated with 
the Iowa State Horticultural Society. 
HARDY FERNS 
It is strange some enterprising nurseryman or grower 
has not made a specialty of growing hardy native ferns. 
There is always a demand which could be very much 
enlarged if they were advertised and exploited half as 
much as some much less worthy plants are. It is true a 
number of nurseries offer a brief list in their catalogues 
but the demand is chiefly supplied from collected stock, 
which to say the least is uncertain and as a rule very 
poor stock. A nurseryman is hardly deserving of the 
name if he depends on plants growing wild in the woods 
and fields for his stock in trade. 
What is needed in the trade is a good grower to take 
hold of our native ferns and see what he can do in the 
way of producing them in a wholesale way. With the 
right location and equipment they would be very easy 
to grow and could be produced in quantity at a much 
less cost than it takes to collect them. 
The essentials would be a location where there is 
an acid soil such as is common where the Rhododen¬ 
dron, Azaleas and Huckleberries grow wild, water, 
frames that could be shaded and a greenhouse that 
could be kept above freezing, these with a supply of 
pots, pans and patience should ensure success. 
The greenhouse would be necessary as the sowing of 
the spores should be in winter and early spring, and the 
young “seedling” plants could be handled so much bet¬ 
ter than out of door where it is not so easy to control 
temperature and moisture. 
It would be hard to find a group of plants so deserv¬ 
ing of attention that have been so completely neglected 
by the commercial grower and one which has such big 
possibilities,. 
The plants are general favorites with everyone. Even 
the small town loafer, who only works when he has to, 
knows they have a ready sale and can always make a 
few dollars by going to the woods, collecting a few 
ferns and peddling them around to the people with gar¬ 
dens. 
There are few yards, even city ones, in which there is 
not a corner in which ferns would grow, and often 
where nothing else will, to say nothing of their decora¬ 
tive qualities in competition with other plants. 
To handle them right and in sufficient quantity to sup¬ 
ply to the trade or to advertise them broadly to the con¬ 
sumer, they should be made a specialty of as they are a 
group of plants that do not lend themselves to the 
routine of a nursery. 
THE ANNUAL REARING ORCHARD 
W. D. Hurd 
Occasionally we read arguments against the planting 
of more fruit trees, which are based on the fear that 
there will be an over-production of the standard fruits. 
A study of actual conditions cannot but lead to the op¬ 
posite conclusion. Go where you may in regions adapted 
to the production of apples and peaches especially, and 
you will find a large number of bearing orchards falling 
rapidly into decay and thousands of young trees dying 
from neglect and the want of proper care. 
The last census states that from 1909 to 1919 there 
was a decrease of 36,057,811, or 23.8 per cent, of the 
total number of apple trees of bearing age. The decrease 
in non-bearing trees was 29,620,244, or 45 per cent, of 
the total. In the case of peaches there was a decrease 
of 30.5 per cent, in trees of bearing age and of 48.8 
per cent, in non-bearing trees. The facts are, then, that 
new plantings are not sufficient to take care of the mor¬ 
tality. 
These heavy losses are due largely to general neglect, 
failure to protect trees against San Jose scale and the 
ravages of other insects, fungus diseases, the attacks of 
small animals and starvation. Then there is the ques¬ 
tion of proper feeding. It is doubtful if farmers and 
fruit growers, generally, understand just what the feed¬ 
ing requirements of the fruit tree are. In making trees, 
foliage and fruit, an apple orchard, in 20 years will ex¬ 
tract as much plant food from the soil as will 20 aver¬ 
age crops of wheat. Few farmers would attempt to raise 
twenty successive crops of wheat on the same land with¬ 
out employing rotations and animal manures, green man¬ 
ures or commercial fertilizers. Yet the average orchard 
must make good unaided or pass into the discard. Young 
trees are often set out in sod and then left to shift for 
themselves. Few of them ever live to reach the bear¬ 
ing age. 
No other crop responds so quickly or so perceptibly to 
care and especially to fertilization as does an orchard. 
Several of the experiment stations have been able to de¬ 
termine that fruit bud formation can be definitely in¬ 
creased by an application of quickly available nitrogen 
at the proper time in the spring. Our leading horticul¬ 
turists discountenance the theory of biennial bearing and 
hold that an orchard which is properly fed can and will 
bear annually. 
The definite trend toward decreased acreage in fruit 
calls for larger plantings of our leading fruits and better 
care and management of these plantings. 
