THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
t8o 
Note and Comment 
BOXED APPLES 
The trade in this kind of apple package is increasing 
rapidly each year. Only a short time -since, in fact not 
more than three or four years ago, the box package was 
something which excited curiosity more than serious atten¬ 
tion. A recent despatch from Chicago states that one firm 
sold during the second week of November, 650 cars of 
apples, all packed in boxes. These, of course, came from 
the newer apple growing regions of the west, where the box 
package is almost exclusively used. 
No longer can Australia and New Zealand claim a 
monopoly of the box package. It has come to American 
trade and has come to stay. 
COST OF CLEARING LOGGED-OFF-LAND IN THE 
PACIFIC NORTH-WEST 
Circular No. 25 of the Bureau of Plant Industry gives the 
cost of preparing cut over timber land for farming purposes 
in the Pacific North-west. This means land which once 
was occupied by forest trees which were removed, leaving 
stumps and a certain amount of small growth. The bulletin 
gives details in regard to the best manner of removing 
stumps, using either explosives or machinery; and the aver¬ 
ages based upon many figures which accurately show the cost 
of preparing this land for planting either in farm or orchard 
crops form an interesting exhibit. One table shows that a 
company equipped with the best machinery and the fullest 
information as to methods, cleared 120 acres of land occupied 
with stumps from one to four feet in diameter and some 
small undergrowth at a cost of $1,170.77, or an average of 
slightly over 30 cents per stump. Other figures by various 
growers indicate that it costs all the way from $90.00 to 
$218.00 per acre for clearing land of this kind; while in the 
case of green timber the cost may run as high as $350. The 
writer of the bulletin says that “From the foregoing tables 
of the cost of clearing land it will be seen that it is only very 
rich land, or that which is near the centers of population 
that will at the present time pay interest on the capital 
invested to put it under cultivation.’’ 
CULTIVATION OF NURSERY STOCK 
C. M. Hobbs 
What I have to say on this subject will be confined to 
my experience with the rather heavy clay soils of Central 
Indiana. 
We have three well-defined purposes in cultivation: 
The destruction of weeds, the liberation of plant food and 
the conservation of moisture. The tools that will the most 
cheaply and effectively accomplish these ends on our soils 
and under our conditions are the ones for us to use. In 
our practice we have relied mainly on the two-horse c.ongue- 
less walking cultivator. With a high arch we are able to 
cultivate two and three year stock with these. We follow 
the cultivator in dry weather with either a single or double 
drag, well weighted, thoroughly pulverizing the surface. 
This process is kept up about every ten days through the 
season. It is our purpose after a heavy shower to break 
the crust that may have formed and restore the dust mulch 
conditions as quickly as possible, thus preventing the loss of 
moisture by capillary action. 
For those who may not know of the double drag, I will 
say that it is made by attaching drags to the inside feet of a 
double cultivator. We drag both sides of the row at once, 
the same as in cultivating; the drags are under control by 
the handles; we can get closer to the rows and all the ground 
between the rows is dragged. 
The best method for keeping stock clean in the rows, as 
far as we know, is either with the disc plow, set to throw the 
dirt from the row or mouldboards attached to the inside feet 
of the two-horse cultivator, or in larger stock we use the 
pony bar plow running the bar as close to the row as we well 
can, leaving as narrow a ridge as possible between the 
plants. This plowing is immediately followed by a gang 
of boys that cost from 50c to 75c each, per day, with sharp 
triangular steel scratchers with convenient handles. These 
boys will do more work in a day—and do it much better— 
than men with hoes at double the wages. 
The first cultivation of two and three year stock in the 
spring is sometimes a pretty serious problem, especially if 
the weather be dry and the ground hard. In this case, I 
think we have found our one horse mouldboard plow to be 
the best tool to use, first throwing the dirt to the row and 
splitting the middle with a double shovel or one-horse cul¬ 
tivator, following this with the drag. 
We have found a disc cultivator to work well sometimes 
in hard ground, cutting an inch or so deep, following with a 
drag and letting it lie a few days., then go deeper with a 
cultivator. 
I have no disposition to enter into a discussion of the 
comparative merits of the various cultivators, harrows, etc. 
The effectiveness of these is largely dependent upon the 
size of the stock, the character of the soil and the man 
behind the plow. 
„ BLUEBERRIES IN NOVA SCOTIA 
Consul Alfred J. Fleming furnishes the following report 
on the cultivation of blueberries in Nova Scotia, and their 
shipment from Yarmouth: 
In addition to thousands of dollars worth of fish, dried, 
canned, pickled and fresh, and the vast quantities of lobster 
and lumber products, with 10,000 or 20,000 barrels of 
apples every year, all of which are exported to the United 
States from this port, there is one item of no mean propor¬ 
tions and that is blueberries. These berries are wild here 
and very abundant. The season really began July 18 and 
practically closed September 28, extending a trifle over two 
months, and during that time, by official returns received 
from the Yarmouth custom’s office, there were exported from 
this part the enormous quantity of 24,210 crates of blue¬ 
berries, and these were worth, as given by the same authority 
the handsome sum of $53,806. In other words, as most of 
these berries went to Boston, $53,806 of Boston money 
found its way back to Nova Scotia and practically the Yar¬ 
mouth territory. As these shipments were all in small lots, 
under $100 each, no consular services were needed. It is 
