318 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
Method Used in Growing a Marketable One Year Cherry 
Read at the Atlanta Meeting of the Southern Nurserymen’s Association, August 29-30, 1916. 
By Meredith 1\ Reed, Vincennes, Indiana. 
I N discussing this subject, I do not propose to give any 
hard and fast rules. I expect to find a great many 
who will differ with me,—in fact no two nursery¬ 
men work alike. Experience and close attention to de¬ 
tail are the most important factors entering into the 
growing of cherry trees. No nurseryman can success¬ 
fully grow cherry unless he gives it his undivided atten¬ 
tion as there are too many destructive elements at work, 
to trust their care to men who are not as competent as 
yourselves. 
Immediately after the arrival of our stocks from 
France and their subsequent inspection they are packed 
in a section of the storage cellar with slightly moist ex¬ 
celsior or moss scattered thinly through the roots, just 
enough to hold a small amount of moisture, care being 
taken to see that the packing material is not too wet. 
They remain there until planting time, when they are 
unpacked, pruned and planted. We have tried pruning 
the roots upon arrival, repacking in boxes and putting 
on cold storage. Also healing in sand and various 
other methods hut it seems impossible to keep fungus 
out unless pruning is delayed until planting time. 
Cherry do not adapt themselves to as wide a range of 
soils as do most fruits. I have seen one side of a field 
grow fine trees while the other side of the same field pro¬ 
duced inferior trees, due to the difference in soil. I 
know of no way in determining good cherry land other 
than by experiment. One of the prime factors, I might 
say the prime factor, in growing cherry is soil fertility. 
In the treatment of our land at Vincennes, we turn 
under a green crop of cow peas or some other good legum¬ 
inous crop with a heavy coat of stable manure and if the 
soil is sour we give it a coat of ground limestone, two 
tons to the acre. This is all turned under together in 
the fall. This building up process is done after the re¬ 
moval of each crop of trees. In the spring the ground 
is double disced, harrowed and dragged, making a thor¬ 
ough seed bed before planting. 
As soon as the stocks are planted intense cultivation is 
begun, which is kept up throughout the summer, when¬ 
ever possible, making a fine dust mulch. Above all 
things, never allow a crust to form as the moisture 
evaporates and the sap ceases to flow. During the bud¬ 
ding season, in exceedingly dry weather, we have cul¬ 
tivated as often as once a day for weeks, to keep the 
stocks growing. 
Our seedlings are sprayed occasionally to control rust, 
using either Bordeaux Mixture or Commercial Lime Sul¬ 
phur, a wet season requires more spraying than a dry 
one. 
Our budding season usually begins about the first day 
of July, continuing up to the latter part of September. 
A great deal may he said about budding. It is a sub¬ 
ject that has been discussed many times, but I have never 
yet seen an article or photograph from which anyone 
could bud Mahaleb and obtain a ten per cent stand, nor do 
I feel able to explain it myself. It is one of the things 
that has to be learned by experience and a great deal of 
practice. We have employed budders from other nur¬ 
series, who have said they had budded cherry but we 
found them sadly lacking according to our standards. 
We use a common shield bud about one and one half 
inches long. In cutting the bud, care is exercised to 
cut beneath the sap even a little way into the wood but 
not so deep as to make a solid piece of wood beneath the 
germ of the bud. In testing a bud to see if it is cut cor¬ 
rectly you should be able to pull out a small sliver of 
wood whch is forked around the bud germ. We use 
carpet warp for tying buds which we think, is much bet¬ 
ter than raffia. 
About the first of March we begin “cutting off” and 
as soon as the frost is out of the ground the buds are 
barred off and the ground hoed. Too much emphasis can¬ 
not be placed upon early cultivation. It is very essential to 
force the sap into the bud to start early growth. The first 
two weeks growth of a bud largely determines the size 
of the tree the following fall. 
All sprouts or suckers should be kept rubbed off as the 
bud needs all the sap flow that is possible. In this con¬ 
nection, I will say a word as to limbing. A great many 
nurserymen never limb a cherry tree, which is all right 
where they are growing them for two year trees, and on 
poor ground but on the other hand, where you are grow¬ 
ing cherry on well prepared ground and not limb them 
you obtain a large calipered tree but below the standard 
height. We usually limb our blocks about three times. 
By limbing I mean the pinching out or jerking the lower 
limbs. The first limbing we never remove more than 
two or three lower limbs. This is done when the buds 
are about twelve inches high. The next limbing is done 
when the buds are from fourteen to sixteen inches, this 
time removing one or two limbs, the last limbing is made 
when the buds are from twenty to twenty-four inches 
high, this time removing all limbs to a height of fourteen 
inches. In performing this operation you should not 
remove all the limbs from a bud nor limb so high as to 
make it top heavy. If you remove the limbs any higher 
you get a tall tree but small caliper. I hope no one will 
follow the above method unless he is certain he can 
produce a good marketable one year tree, as this was 
worked out from experience and observation, where we 
produce on an average of sixty per cent, of eleven-six¬ 
teenths up, trees at one year old. 
We spray our dormant buds with a winter strength 
solution of lime and sulphur. It may only be a theory, 
we have no proof, but we notice where we spray the 
dormant buds we have less aphis than we do on buds 
not sprayed, this is also apparent on two year trees. 
During the summer our spray outfits are going almost 
continuously. A good rule to follow, if you haven’t had 
any experience with spraying, is to spray for each three 
or four inches of new growth, keeping the trees well 
