New Stuff !!! 
Cypress Plantbands Won’t Steal 
Your Soil Nitrogen! 
Wood veneer bands have a great reputation for 
doing that. Chances are that you have seen ar- 
ticles in the trade journals saying that many 
plants appear unhappy in plantbands. 
They explain it this way: wood veneer, being 
thin, decomposes rapidly. While the band is 
rotting, large amounts of Nitrogen are used in 
the process. 
Maybe so; we are not too scientifically inclined, 
but let us tell you about our actual experiences 
with plantbands and the reasons for this new 
cypress plantband idea. 
Before the War we used different kinds of plant- 
bands in a comparatively moderate way. ‘The 
overall program looked very nice for a number 
of reasons. ‘They were low in cost; you could 
move them around by the flatful instead of by the 
single pot; they took up less room, and held more 
soil than comparable sizes of clay pots; thus they 
needed fewer “shiftings.’’ 
They stayed moist longer than clay pots; being 
cubical in shape, they pack nicely and tightly for 
shipment. No knocking out; no paper shipping 
pots to buy; no breakage; and no pots to wash. 
Then there need not be a lot of money tied up 
in a shedful of pots. A couple of thousand plant- 
bands could be carried under each arm. A mil- 
lion bands could be filed away in one of the pot 
bins. 
It certainly looked like there were a lot of econ- 
omies and labor-saving potentialities in the band 
idea. But there was always this worry about the 
“nitrogen-hungry look” of the plants. Nitrates 
were applied, and helped considerably. But 
when nitrates were added, that seemed to step 
up the tempo of the band rotting. 
Here we were, trying to sell a “balled baby’”’ 
shrub and evergreen program, put up in nice 
little packages containing fine, thrifty plants with 
19 
