THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
1 77 
other orchard fruits propagated in the same way, but there 
is no reason to suppose that they will not respond equally 
well. Indeed,such information as experience has gathered, 
demonstrates this beyond reasonable doubt. Added to all 
the other good points is the natural life of the tree. It 
makes a great difference whether one may expect to replant 
his orchard in ten to twenty, thirty or forty years, or 
whether he establishes an enterprise which will last for a 
century or longer. This is a strong feature of the pecan and 
an argument which may very properly be used. 
A recent bulletin issued by the West 
LOW GRADE Virginia Experiment Station, on the 
VERSUS HIGH question of whether it is most economical 
GRADE FER- to purchase low or high grade fertilizers, 
TILIZERS is of prime importance to nurserymen. 
This bulletin asserts that “it is very poor 
business on anyone’s part to invest in low grade fertilizers.’’ 
As a business proposition the high grade fertilizer is always 
the most economical. Although it costs more, it is much 
cheaper. The author of the bulletin says: 
“From the moment the raw materials leave the mine, the 
slaughterhouse or garbage dump until they are in the soil, 
the cost of handling is one of the heaviest items the fanner 
eventually has to meet. Such expenses are the same for a 
ton of fertilizer containing one per cent of plant food as for a 
ton of fertilizer containing two or more per cent. The 
average freight bill alone on fertilizers shipped into this state 
is over $2.00 per ton. This, and a number of like bills could, 
of course, be cut in two by purchasing fertilizers containing 
double the amount of actual plant food. The cost of 
handling fertilizers from warehouses, cars, or boats to the 
farm is an item worth considering if only for wear and tear 
on horses and wagons. Why make two trips if one will do? 
Concentrated high-grade materials necessarily command 
a higher price, but the difference is not always proportional 
to the difference in actual plant food, the high-grade 
materials as a rule being cheaper, pound for pound of actual 
plant food. 
The statement is illustrated by comparisons of high- 
grade and low-grade fertilizers, the analyses of which are 
reported in the bulletin. The authors say: 
If purchasers of commercial fertilizers would only get 
into the habit of calculating the number of pounds of plant 
food in a ton of every fertilizer in which they are interested, 
they might often be surprised to note how much they might 
have saved on the quantities of plant food they have been 
purchasing, or how much more plant food they might have 
purchased for the same money. 
But there is yet another and a better reason for using 
the concentrated fertilizers. It has to do with the fitness of 
the various sorts of fertilizer materials for supplying the 
needs of plants. As a rule that has but few exceptions, the 
more concentrated the materials from which the fertilizer is 
made the more suitable (or less objectionable) they are as 
food for plants. 
It is pointed out that— 
“Farmers will get concentrated fertilizers whenever they 
decline to accept the other kind. By purchasing concen¬ 
trated fertilizers they will save on the cost of actual plant 
food and they will not get low-grade nitrogen and potash 
materials, for the simple reason that a concentrated fertili¬ 
zer can hardly be compounded from low-grade materials.’’ 
We have heard a good deal in the last five 
ORCHARD ° r Six years in re £ ard to different methods 
MANAGEMENT <J ^ rummaging the orchard soil, it is un¬ 
questionably true that more orchards are 
injured by neglect and the failure to 
institute any method whatever, than by the application of 
the system which is not the best. In other words, a poor 
system thoroughly adhered to, may give better results than 
the let-alone policy often pursued by owners of orchards. 
The sod mulch system has been widely advertised and 
much discussed. The danger in following this method is 
that many people do not regard it as a system and do not 
appreciate the necessity of carrying it out rigidly. They 
are of the opinion that “any old method” which maintains 
a sod in the orchard answers the purpose. Now, as a mat¬ 
ter of fact, this very point of view has been the means of 
destroying the profitableness of hundreds of orchards in 
New England and the East. The advocates of the mulch 
methods should make this point clear, namely, that these 
methods are bound to result in loss and deterioration of the 
orchard, unless as a system they are thoroughly conducted. 
A fundamental principle obtains here as well as under the 
cultural methods, namely, that food must be given the 
orchard; and that system which provides most food, either 
by releasing it from the soil, or bringing it in the form of 
stable or artificial fertilizer, to the ground, will in the long 
run give most satisfactory results. 
The investigations of the Cornell Experiment Station in 
its orchard surveys and the recent experiments of the New 
York State Station at its trial grounds in Orleans County, 
reveal the fact that in the long run and under the average 
of circumstances, the cultural methods will give most 
growth, the largest amount of fruit and the greatest return 
in money. Notwithstanding the fact that apples under 
tillage are frequently less highly colored than those under 
sod mulch method conditions, yet the proof of the pudding 
in this case is the final returns; and the New York State 
Station has clearly demonstrated after a five-years test that 
at least on clay loam in Western New York, tillage is more 
profitable than sod mulch. It remains to be said that in 
certain conditions sod mulch is the only feasible method, 
and therefore, where it is a case of this system or no apples, 
then of course the inevitable must be accepted. In doing 
this, it does not follow that the grower will not receive profit 
from his labors; but it does mean that where tillage methods 
are possible, they usually bring larger returns than any 
system of sod culture which has been tested thus far. 
A certain notable gathering occurs in some 
THE city of the union each year. We refer to 
NURSERYMAN the meeting of the American Civic Associa- 
AND CIVIC tion. The purpose of this organization is 
IMPROVEMENT to consider ways and means of improving 
conditions of living in cities, towns and 
villages. The motives underlying this organization are 
