THE NATIONAL. ■ NURSERYMAN 
91 
places 'in that frigid region. Failures in the North are as¬ 
cribed to physical conditions, sourness of* the soil, lack of 
available plant food, and the right kinds of nitrogen gathering 
bacteria. Ice covering a: snow/'sheet- will also smother the 
alfalfa. It is not generally-known that careful experiments 
were made in New York State with this plant more than one 
hundred years ago. The results of these experiments may 
be found in the early reports of the New York State Agricul¬ 
tural Society. It was a-wise man who said there was “nothing 
new under the sun.” 
It is perhaps not the cry in New York more than in other 
states, but the fact that the educational phases of the question 
have received such an impetus in this state in the last few 
months, has placed the whole enter- 
good roa ds prise on a more promising basis than former- 
THE CRY. ly. It has now a distinct educational aspect, 
for the last supply bill passed by the New 
York State Legislature carries with it the sum of $10,000 for 
the establishment of a good roads school at Cornell University; 
This marks the inception of an important departure in the 
good roads movement. As a corollary to this important step, 
a good roads conference was held at Cornell May 16-19. At 
this conference representatives of the State Engineer’s De¬ 
partment- at Albany, the Bureau of Farmers’ Institutes of 
the state, the state Department of Agriculture, the leading 
representatives of the agricultural papers of the state, in 
addition to the champions of good roads, headed by W. Pierre- 
pont White of Utica, were present. Important additions to 
the literature of good roads were made in the papers presented. 
The action of the Legislature in supporting the educational 
aspects of the work was commended and the conference 
recommended that a committee should be appointed to confer 
and co-operate with the authorities of Cornell in the prepara¬ 
tion of a course of study which should include all the impor¬ 
tant economic and esthetic aspects of this great subject. The 
Empire State has now taken an important step on a great 
fundamental question, one which will probably have more to 
do with the checking of the gradual depreciation of farm 
values in this state than anything else. Where good roads 
have been installed, there, farm values have either increased 
or there has been no decline. 
Experience and investigation both support the theory 
that lands become impoverished, or rather lose their crop 
producing capacity because of the using up, or burning out 
of vegetable matter, humus, rather than 
enriching the actual depletion of mineral plant 
NURSERY LANDS, foods. We are of the opinion therefore 
that' the fertility problem of the nursery¬ 
men is essentially the same as that confronting the farmer; 
in other words, that physical conditions of the soil, as affected 
by drainage, as influenced by amount of vegetable matter 
affecting its fiber, are more important than- the probable 
amount of potash or phorphoric acid present. 
The cultivating season is now on. Nurserymen can give 
farmers points on cultivating and then win hands down. They 
do not wait for the weeds to appear in order to understand 
that the nursery needs tilling, but the cultivator is kept 
going, so that the surface mulch may be preserved and the 
soil moisture thus retained. This kind of soil management 
means greater activity in the soil, which in turn means the 
using- up- of relatively larger amounts of humus. The more 
tillage therefore, the. :moro.plant food made available, conse¬ 
quently the more growth. It comes back then upon the soil 
and the nurseryman and resolves itself into a problem of main¬ 
taining the productivity of his land through favorable phy¬ 
sical conditions of the soil, and plenty of vegetable matter. 
Nurserymen: do not favor the sowing of secondary crops 
between the. rows of trees. We would like to see an experi¬ 
ment tried this year. We would like to see a number of 
nurserymen sow. in one of their blocks of nursery trees two 
rows of cow peas in one plot, in each interspace; in another 
plot two rows of vetch; in another two rows of mammoth 
clover. A single row of either of these crops would be much 
better than none at all in our belief. The seed could be put 
in with a Planet Jr. drill, and being put in rows, the ground 
could be cultivated with finger cultivators without tearing 
out the secondary crop. It is not likely that the installation 
of a crop of this kind would invite mice or other rodents. 
When plowed under the next Spring, the amount of fiber, 
vegetable matter and actual nitrogen added to the soil would 
be very considerable, in our opinion worth much more than 
the cost of the seed and the incidental care necessary to grow it. 
The Cornell University Experiment Station has been in¬ 
terested during the past winter in testing the influence of 
the acetylene light in promoting plant growth. It is a no¬ 
torious fact that in many parts of New 
acetylene England and New "York the months of 
light as AN November, December and the forepart 
agent FOR of January are trying periods for the green- 
FORCING PLANTS, house man. It is at this time that he 
struggles with the contradictory problem of 
insufficient: light and the necessity of ventilation and watering. 
During the past winter, experiments have been conducted 
by M. J. Iorns, a graduate student in the Department of Horti¬ 
culture at the forcing houses of Cornell University, having for 
their purpose a comparison of the influence of acetylene and 
electric light on plant growth under different temperatures. In 
a recent number of the Acetylene Journal a condensed state¬ 
ment of the gross results obtained are presented. It was 
found that acetylene light, approximating closely the quality 
of the sun’s spectrum, exerted an energetic influence on plant 
growth. Plants grown under acetylene light vegetated much 
more rapidly than others not under its influence and those 
grown for cut flowers reached the blooming stage considerably 
in advance of their competitors grown under ordinary sun¬ 
light only. Easter lilies grew twice as high and bloomed ten 
days to two weeks in advance of those outside of the acetylene 
lighted area. The growth of radish and lettuce was greatly 
hastened, and the yield in a given time much increased. The 
branches of flowering shrubs responded in a marked degree 
to the influence of the light. Those under acetylene light 
bloomed several days in advance of those in the same tempera¬ 
ture and influenced by day light only.. It was also proved 
that the plants under the influence of acetylene light only, 
would form chlorophyl as if grown in sun light. 
Whether there is a commercial future for acetylene in the 
forcing of plants is- a problem that awaits solution in the light 
of more comprehensive investigation. 
The beauty of the spring of 1905 in Central New York, at 
any rate and-probably all the eastern country, should long 
