THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
361 
Vegetable Seeds occupy an important place in the business of the Storrs & Harrison 
Company.. A fine field of Onions. 
Development of New Areas. 
One of the particularly interesting features of this busi¬ 
ness to the occasional visitor is the fact that the stock is all 
grown under the immediate eye and direction of the 
company and on their own land. When this system pre¬ 
vails it always means that the purely farming features must 
receive careful attention. No nursery can continue the 
cropping of land with any degree of success unless a careful 
and systematic method of rotation is followed; but with a 
rational rotation it is entirely feasible. The visitor finds 
here that the northern world’s great regenerating plant, 
clover, is an important factor in the rotation and that when 
a block is cropped with 
rose bushes, seedling stock, 
or fruit trees, it is suc¬ 
ceeded, rested and rejuve¬ 
nated by the giving of it up 
to a crop of clover for a 
period of at least one sea¬ 
son. Oats and rye are used 
as seeding down crops very 
generally. 
New Lands Added. 
We were keenly inter¬ 
ested in the work of sub¬ 
duing a piece of farm land 
which had recently been 
purchased by the company. 
While this land had been 
farmed for half a century, 
yet the radical difference between the methods of 
the nurseryman* as exemplified by Mr. George’s plan and 
those of the farmer were particularly noticeable when this 
land was being prepared for the tree crops. On the surface 
it looked fair and smooth. The Storrs & Harrison method 
however, while plowing the ground, follows the plow with a 
sub-soiler. This 'implement loosens the soil to a depth of 
some ten or twelve inches below the bottom of the furrow. 
It was in running the sub-soiler that the plowmen “met 
trouble.” Boulders, nigger-heads and cobble stones were 
found in quantity and as these must be gotten out of the way 
so that the tree digger could be used in later times, there was 
nothing to do but to dig them up and cart them off. This 
was expeditiously done by having the sub-soiler followed by 
a gang of active men with picks and digging spades. When¬ 
ever a stone was located, up it came, was placed upon the 
surface and later carted 
away to the piling ground. 
One of the illustrations 
shows the appearance of 
one of these new fields after 
it was treated in this way. 
These stones are of some 
value in these days of build¬ 
ing operations. Not only 
is stoning of the fields im¬ 
portant but draining is 
equally essential and every 
rod of this new land which 
is acquired from time to 
time is carefully tile drain¬ 
ed, for these nurserymen 
know tha+ they must be 
able to work the land 
early in the spring and 
late in the fall. Good drainage enables them to do 
this. This special department is under the efficient 
direction of Mr. Robert George, vice-president and general 
manager. A fine crop of corn running from 80 to 90 
A sample photograph by the Storrs & Harrison 
Company, photographers. 
