THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
137 
COMMERCIAL FERTILIZERS FOR NURSERY STOCK 
A Paper Presented by W. B. Cole at the 1912 Meeting of the Ohio 
Nurserymen’s Association 
This subject was assigned to me at the last minute, and 
put on the last end of the program, not because of what I 
know about the use of fertilizers, but to give the rest of you, 
who do know, an opportunity to discuss the subject. If you 
were to ask me what visible results I have had from the use of 
the commercial article, I would have to reply that in most 
cases I have had none when applied direct to growing nursery 
stock. Yet, I believe that we can profitably use, and in 
many situations must use, commercial fertilizers. I will 
attempt to explain my seemingly contradictory conclusions. 
Every nurseryman knows that, in order to grow a profit¬ 
able crop of nursery stock, the soil must be fertile and well 
supplied with humus, and that the fertilizing elements must 
be well incorporated in the soil. The building up of exhausted 
soil is a slow process which cannot be accomplished suddenly 
by the addition of quantities of fertilizers, either barnyard or 
commercial. If this is true in general, it is true to a much 
larger extent when fertilizer is applied to deep rooted tree 
crops than when applied to shallow rooted grain or grass 
crops. 
There is no question but that we do receive profitable 
returns from the wise application of commercial fertilizers 
on farm products. For this reason, we have used this form 
of fertilizer in growing grain and grass crops, usually applied 
at time of seeding. Any nursery crop that occupies the 
ground two years or longer wears out the humus by the 
constant cultivation required, and a large amount of the 
fertility is either used up in the growing crop or escapes by 
leaching away. To place the land in proper condition for 
another crop of nursery stock is where commercial fertilizer 
can be used to the best advantage. If nursery stock is 
followed by a grain crop, as is usually the case, apply enough 
fertilizer to grow a maximum crop and at the same time 
secure a crop of grass or clover for plowing under. Repeat 
these operations until you are satisfied that fertility and 
humus are fully restored before again planting to nursery 
stock. Here, I believe, is the most desirable place for a 
nurseryman to use commercial fertilizer. 
I will repeat a few results that I have noticed on both farm 
and nursery crop by the use of commercial fertilizers. I 
manured a portion of a com field, and on July first, the com 
on the manured portion was about four feet high and of a 
dark green color. On the unmanured part the corn was one 
to two feet high and of a sickly color. I applied about July 
first nitrate of soda and muriate of potash separately to 
the unmanured part at the rate of about two-hundred pounds 
to the acre. This application was followed by abundant rain, 
and the improvement was almost immediately noticeable. 
The result was a yield of about ninety bushels of ear com per 
acre on the plots treated with manure, nitrate, and potash, 
while the unfertilized plot yielded about thirty bushels to the 
acre. The strange thing about this experiment was that 
there was little difference noticeable in the use of the three 
elements of fertilit}^ each producing about the same result, 
although used on separate plots. 
I applied muriate of potash to one row of peach seedlings 
in August at the rate of one thousand pounds per acre, by 
opening a trench three inches deep beside the row and 
scattering the potash in the trench, which was then filled up. 
Up to this time, the seedlings were small and off color. The 
soil was sand and gravel and had had no recent applications 
of fertilizer, although good farm crops had been produced. 
There were no noticeable results on the seedlings the first 
year, but the following year the buds were better color and 
about one foot higher on the treated row. The estimated 
increase of value of the crop was twenty-five per cent., or at 
least $100.00 per acre, while the cost of application, if applied 
to the whole- field, would not have exceeded thirty dollars 
per acre. 
In 1909, we applied complete fertilizer at the rate of 
about eight hundred pounds per acre, consisting of tankage, 
muriate of potash, nitrate of soda and bone-meal, to about 
eight acres of pear, plum, and cherry buds and peach seedlings 
using one-horse fertilizer drill, each side of the row. This 
application was made in June, leaving occasionally unfer¬ 
tilized check rows. There were no noticeable results either 
the first or second year or at the time the stock was dug. 
The spring of 1910 we applied nitrate of soda to 15,000 
Catalpa Speciosa in June, being the second year after plant¬ 
ing. These trees had been cut down in the spring, and at the 
time of applying nitrate had made a growth of about two feet. 
Our men were instructed to scatter a tablespoonful about 
each tree. In about three weeks some of the Catalpa shoots 
began to fall down, and upon examination we found that some 
of the nitrate had lodged at the base of the new growth and 
caused injury to the bark and tissue, so that we lost about 
five hundred trees in this way. The balance of the trees 
made six or eight feet growth that season and showed no 
further injury. While we left no check rows, I am satisfied 
that the application greatly increased the growth, and had 
our men been more careful in the apidication, we would 
have had no injury. 
In the spring of 1911 we planted five acres to blackberries, 
piece roots. The soil was a moist sand which had been 
planted to onions for several years, and on which liberal 
applications of nitrate of soda, bone-meal, and various com¬ 
plete fertilizers had been used, but no barnyard manure. 
We harvested from this block last fall the largest growth of 
root cutting blackberries which we ever produced. In this 
instance, at least, there can be no question that the heavy 
previous applications of commercial fertilizers constituted the 
main factor in producing the crop. 
In conclusion, I would advise the use of commercial 
fertilizers on all grain or grass crops with the idea of building 
