Plant nursery

“ In laying off the blocks of nursery stock, the varieties that are wanted for the orchard, should be planted in such a manner, that they shall be in every fourth row, so that the orchard trees will stand in rows sixteen to twenty feet apart, according as the nursery-rows are four or five feet wide. In cultivating and trimming these rows in the nursery, a plant is selected, every twelve or sixteen feet, which is to remain as the orchard tree when the block shall be cleared. A good tree is selected, and special care in the pruning is bestowed upon it to secure the desired form, and low branches ”

“ It is a common notion that trees grown from suckers sprout or sucker worse than those grown from seeds. Layers are also extensively employed for the propagation of the plum. Strong stools (page 35) are grown, and the long and strong shoots are covered in spring throughout their length—the tips only being exposed—and every bud will produce a plant. Strong shoots of vigorous sorts will give plants strong enough the first fall to be removed into nursery rows. ”

“ The plant you procure from the nursery will be small. So small, indeed, that if you leave eight or ten feet between it and the next one you set out, it will look so lonesome that it excites your pity, and you may be induced to plant another in the unfilled space to keep it company. But in doing this you will be making a great mistake. Three or four years from now the bushes will have run together to such an extent that each plant has lost its individuality. There will be a thicket of branches which will constantly interfere with each other's well being, and [Pg 54] prevent healthy development. ”

“ The catalogues should be searched every Spring for suitable subjects. The best time for sowing is the Spring, but any time during the Summer will do. Many perennials and bulbs must be bought in nurseries and increased as well as may be in nursery beds. As to soil, etc., the best way is to avoid the trouble of preparing it except for specially interesting plants. The great point is to adapt the plant to the soil—in peaty places to place plants that thrive in peat, in clay soils those that thrive in clays, and so on. ”

“ In a month the shoots will be from three to four inches high. When seed is sown and dry weather follows, the seedlings will perish. It will be necessary, therefore, to plant the ground anew. It is wise, therefore, to raise plants in a nursery to supply the vacancies in the hills. ”

“ I cultivate my orchard all the time with a disc drawn by four horses. I plant no crop. Have some weeds and rabbits. Windbreaks are essential; would make them of mulberries planted not closer than forty feet to the first row of trees; would buy the mulberry sprouts from the nursery. I keep the rabbits down with dogs and shot-guns; dig borers out. I never thin my apples; the wind does it for me. I fertilize my orchard with barn-yard litter, but think it injurious to the trees. Do not pasture my orchard. Trees are troubled with canker-worm and tent-caterpillar, and fruit with curculio. ”

“ A berry, generally one which has itself fallen ripe from the tree, is put into the ground, usually in a nursery plot, though some planters prefer to place the seed in the identical hole which is to be its future situation. The nursery plan is, however, generally adopted, and here the young plant, which shoots up in about a month after it is sown, is allowed to remain until about sixteen months old. ”

“ A very important point is the getting of a stock of plants to begin with. In country or other places where many good old border flowers remain in the cottage gardens, many species may be collected therein. A series of nursery beds should be formed in some by–place in which such subjects could be increased to any desired degree. Free–growing spring–flowers like Aubrietia, Alyssum, and Iberis, may be multiplied to any extent by division or cuttings. Numbers of kinds may be raised from seed sown rather thinly in drills, in nursery beds in the open air. ”

“ The little trees should be set in well-mellowed soil, to the exact depth that they attained in the nursery. They should be given plenty of water to start with, trimmed of all their leaves, and the earth should be packed solidly about their roots. After this be careful not to give them too much water; just enough to keep the earth about them damp is sufficient.
A year or so after being set in its permanent place, and after it has put on a healthy new growth, all nursery stock should be budded from well-known varieties of its own kind. ”

“ For these plantlets I chose a nursery that was not exposed all day to the sun. One has to think for them; they repay it with quicker and sturdier growth, which means better flowering capacity in the spring.
So all my wallflowers, forget-me-nots, Canterbury-bells, sweet-Williams, silene, were thus attended to, and, added to my nursery division of perennial seeds, which I now divided up in like fashion, made a grand show, or promise rather. ”

“ The large majority of purchasers at the nursery always select those trees which are most vigorous, notwithstanding the prejudice against stimulating the trees, and then with mutilated roots, they probably omit cutting back the limbs sufficiently, and when their neglected orchard fails, they complain of the forced trees. The change from the good cultivation of the nursery to the careless culture and even neglect of the farm, is certainly hard for the poor things to bear. Late growth, encouraged by high manuring, is injurious. ”

“ But many persons, purchasers and sellers, prefer larger trees, and they recommend that the trees should remain one, two, or even three years longer in the nursery. Others, a new school of planters, prefer to set out the maiden tree, in most of the species above named, except some very feebly growing varieties, that will [136] scarcely have attained sufficient size to risk in the orchard. The nurseryman should beware of keeping his trees too long on his hands; they may become unprofitable stock, and are sure to require much more labor in the digging and handling. ”

“ The soil for a nursery should be rich, well dug, dressed with well-decayed manure, free from weeds, and protected from cold winds. Fruit-seeds should be planted in the autumn, an inch and a half or two inches deep, in ridges four or five feet apart, pressing the earth firmly over the seeds. While growing, they should be thinned out, leaving the best ones a foot and a half apart. The soil should be kept loose, soft, and free from weeds. They should be inoculated or ingrafted when of the size of a pipe-stem ”

“ Is it any wonder if horticulture in its best sense—that is, the culture of the garden as a whole—is not what it should be? No gardener can get prizes for well-kept beds, for effects of harmonious colouring, for arrangement of shrubberies, for the grouping of herbaceous plants. He is tempted for the sake of a single specimen to sacrifice the beauty of a whole plant, or the clusters of an entire fruit-tree. That it is most important for nurserymen to be able to compare new species, [74] or new varieties of old species, is of course undeniable. ”

“ It is the practice of nurserymen to force their trees by cultivation, and by pruning. It is very well known, to those conversant with the nursery business, that great growers and early growers are the favorites (and, so far as an expeditious preparation of stock for sale is concerned, justly) , that slow and tedious growers are put upon rampant growing stocks to quicken them. In some cases manures are freely applied to the soil, as directed by all writers who teach [Pg 313] how to prepare ground for a nursery. But such writers had their eye upon the soil of England or New England. ”

“ Plants raised in a nursery are usually sown in bottomless baskets about one inch below the surface in a place well sheltered from the winds. The nurseries must be kept free from weeds and well watered every day in dry weather, especially when the seeds are planted in bamboo baskets, for should the earth become hard and dry the nuts will not germinate. ”

“ The nurseryman must wait until his stocks have been grown one or more years in the nursery, his trees will sometimes be larger than he desires, they will be apt to have the mark of the grafting as a blemish upon the stalk sometimes during the life of the tree; and worse than all, he is restricted to a brief period in the spring, when he is obliged to perform the operation out of doors, and often in very unpleasant weather. ”

“ The water plants are very interesting in that the pollen is just light enough to float on the exact level of the mother part of the flower, otherwise fertilization could never take place, and there would be no more lovely lilies. Long throated blossoms are fertilized by their attraction for certain moths or humming birds who have long tongues. Mother Nature is exceedingly careful to reproduce her children, and in every conceivable way she sees to it that her plant-seeds are fertilized and distributed. ”

“ It is not more than one fourth of the ordinary work to keep a nursery clean in this way. Two thirds of those thus planted and cultivated will be large enough for root-grafting the first season, and for cleft-grafting the second. When your seedlings are six inches high, if you thoroughly mulch them with fine straw or manure, you will be troubled with no more weeds, and your trees will get a strong growth. ”

“ There is a common idea, which I myself once shared, that it is always best to have your nursery on new land, but this is really not at all necessary if you renew your land by carting on to it top soil from the jungle, or even a mixture of any fresh soil that has not been trampled upon, and which has been mixed with cattle manure and some bone-meal. I consider it most important to retain the same site for the nursery, because, by growing casuarinas to cast lateral shade on it, you can ultimately dispense with shading the nursery, as these trees run up quickly, and attain a great height. ”

“ Cultivating is done by use of the hoe and “cultivator,” the rake-like tool which has but few prongs. Draw the cultivator between the rows of plants every day or two. Use the hoe in smaller spaces. Use the hoe to chop down weeds below the surface of the ground, being careful not to cut into the roots of the garden plants.
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In breaking up the hard soil, or “cultivating,” the weeds are destroyed, but hard soil is a worse enemy of plant babies than weeds even, although every child knows how dreadful it is for a garden to let weeds steal all the food from the baby plants. ”

“ More than a month is saved for maturing and harvesting winter and early spring crops, or in fitting the fields for rice, by this planting in nursery beds. The irrigation period for most of the land is cut short a like amount, saving in both water and time. It is cheaper and easier to highly fertilize and prepare a small area for the nursery, while at the same time much stronger and more uniform plants are secured than would be possible by sowing in the field. The labor of weeding and caring for the plants in the nursery is far less than would be required in the field. ”

“ In our early gardening days we often used to get a healthy Palm or Indiarubber from a good nursery, thinking when we bought it that the nurseryman was rather stupid and neglectful to leave the poor thing caged in that little pot of hard soil. We would bring it home, turn it out, find its roots in a thick mat, plunge them into a pot about four times the size of the old one, full of nice, loose, fresh soil, and expect it to grow like Jack’s Beanstalk in its happy new conditions. The ungrateful thing usually died. ”

“ Where it is practicable and within reach, it is best for the planter to visit the nursery and make his own selection of the trees, especially if the demand be for a limited number; but he may generally depend upon the judgment and honesty of the nurseryman, if he has given his order distinctly as to the shape of the trees he desires to purchase. ”

“ The love of flowers is very desirable in children, and should be cultivated from their earliest years. For that reason, if for no other, we should be exceedingly sorry to have any physician whose judgment we respected forbid the cultivation of house-plants, particularly in the nursery. ”

“ For a nursery, a plat of rich soil is selected, free from stone and cleared from brushwood, except the tall trees, which are left for shade. The ground is dug over and formed into beds from three to four feet wide and the seed is sown nine to twelve inches apart and shaded at eight to twelve inches above ground, by a pendall of leaves. The plants are kept watered on alternate days until they have one pair of leaves, but the shade should not be removed until the plants are six to eight inches high and are able to bear the sun. ”

“ The garden will require extra labor in all this month. After the 15th, tender bulbs and tubers may be planted, dahlias, amaryllises, tuberoses, etc. Peas will require brush; [Pg 93] all your plants from the hot-bed should by this time be well a growing in open air. Roses will be showing their buds. If large roses of a favorite sort are required, more than half the buds should be taken off, and the whole strength of the plant be given to the remainder. The soil for this best of all flowers, cannot be too rich, nor too deep. ”

“ As the holes are ready for them, the seedlings are taken from the nursery and planted out, being protected from the sun's rays either by fern, or coarse grass, or, in the best managed estates, by a piece of wood, like a roofing shingle, inserted in the soil in such a way as to provide the required shelter. The watering has to be continued till the plants have struck root, when the protecting shelter is removed and the earth banked up round them, care being taken to daily inspect them and remove the worms which have followed them from the nursery. ”