The Nursery-Manual: A Complete Guide to the Multiplication of Plants

Front matter

University o

LaBHHBHi

Alberta Library

Part I Pages

THE CLASSES AND KINDS OF PROPAGATION . 1-21S

CHAPTER

I. Seeds and Shoots ....... 1-10

The commerce in seeds ...... 5-10

II. Propagation by Means of Seeds and Spores . 11-55

1. The requisites and conditions of germination . 12-24

Regulation of moisture ..... 12-19

Requirements of temperature .... 19-20

Influence of light on germination . . . 20-21

Regermination ....... 21

Delayed germination ..... 21-23

Keeping seeds ....... 23-24

2. Seed-testing . 24-33

Testing for viability ..... 24-30

Testing for purity ...... 31-32

The complete seed-test ..... 32-33

3. The handling and sowing of seeds and spores . 33-55

The stratification of seeds ..... 35-37

Other preparatory treatment .... 37-39

Transportation of seeds from abroad . . 39-40

Soil diseases ; sterilizing ..... 40-44

Sowing the seed ...... 44-47

English advice ....... 48-50

Sowing spores ....... 50-51

Forestry practice ...... 51-55

III. Propagation by Means op Separation and Division 56-68 vm

CONTENTS

I IHAPTER

IV. Propagation by Means of Layers and Runners The common or natural layers . . . .

The so-called air-layers . , . . .

V. Propagation by Means of Cuttings .

1. General requirements of cuttings . . . .

Constructions for regulating moisture and heat Bottom heat .......

Placing and protecting the cuttings .

Soil for cuttings ......

The striking of cuttings . . . . .

2. The divers kinds of cuttings . . . , .

Cuttings of tubers ......

Cuttings of roots ......

Cuttings of leaves ......

Cuttings of stems ......

1. Hardwood dormant cuttings

2. Greenwood cuttings .....

VI. Propagation by Means of Budding and Grafting

1. Graftage in general ......

Classification of graftage . . „ . .

Times and methods ......

Shield-budding .......

Other kinds of budding .....

Prong-budding ......

Plate-budding ......

The patch-bud .

H-budding .......

Flute-budding ......

Chip-budding ......

The whip-graft .......

Root-grafted vs. budded stock

Modified whip-grafts .....

The veneer-graft ......

The cleft-graft .......

Top-working trees by means of the cle^t-graft Other uses of the cleft-graft ....

PAGES

69- 79

70- 75 76-79

80-112

80-97

80-86

87- 88

88- 91 91-93 93-97

97-112

98-99

99-101

101-104

104-112

104-107

107-112

113-171

113-120

117-119

119-120

121- 136

122- 133 134-136

134- 135

135- 136

143- 144

CH.4.PTER

VII.

CONTENTS ix

Miscellaneous forms of grafting

PAGES

158-169

Splice-grafting ....

Saddle-grafting ....

158-159

Side-grafting .....

Shield-grafting ....

159-160

Bark-grafting ....

Bridge-grafting ....

160-163

Inlaying .....

163-164

Cutting-grafting ....

164-165

Herbaceous-grafting

165-166

Fruit-grafting ....

Seed-grafting .....

Inarching .....

166-167

Double-working ....

167-169

Grafting-waxes ....

169-171

(17^15

Nursery lands in relation to propagation

Grades of trees .....

179-182

Stocks for grafted fruit-trees

182-184

The dwarfing of fruit-trees

184-185

Pedigree trees .....

185-186

Trimming trees in the nursery

186-187

The storing of trees ....

187-190

Important diseases and insects affecting stock ......

nursery

190-215

Diseases caused by fungi and bacteria

192-209

Fire-blight .....

192-194

Crown-gall .....

194-196

Apple- and pear-scab

196-197

Apple powdery-mildew .

197-198

Yellow-leaf disease of cherry and plum

198-199

Powdery-mildew of cherry

Anthracnose of currants and gooseberries

Septoria leaf-spot of currants and gooseberries

200-202

The gooseberry mildew .

Peach leaf -curl ....

203-204

Leaf-blight of pear and quince

204-206

Septoria leaf-spot of the pear .

RcA,.jpberry yellows ....

206-207

X

CONTENTS

PAGES

Raspberry and blackberry antbracnose . . 207

Black-spot of roses ...... 207-208

Mildew of rose and peach .... 208-209

Insect pests of nursery stock .... 209-215/^''

Plant-lice or aphids ...... 209-210

Pear psylla . . 212

Tarnished plant-bug ..... 212-213

Apple leaf-hopper ...... 213

San Jose scale . . 213-214

Currant worms . . . . . . 215

THE NURSERY-LIST INDEX

Part II 217-441

LIST OF PLATES

PAGE

I. A seed nursery. Flower plants grown for the crop of seeds 10

II. A forest-tree nursery. Seed-beds of white pine seedlings

two years old ........ 50

III. Propagation of hydrangeas. House in July ; the stock

was marketed the following autumn .... 81

IV. Straddle-row tillage in the nursery . . . . .112

V. Tying or wrapping root-grafts by machinery . . . 139

VI. A nursery of ornamental stock ; trimming . . . 173

VII. A good stand of blue spruce . . . . . .201

VIII. A fruit-tree nursery, showing trees two years from the

IX. Two-year budded cherry, on mazzard and mahaleb . 277

X. First-class dwarf apple stock — at left two-year whole-

XL Horse-help in the nursery. Fitting the land for nursery

stock. Digging by mule-power ..... 387

XII. Nursery packing-room, ready for the equipment . . 423 k ■

PART I

THE CLASSES AND KINDS OF PROPAGATION

Chapter I

The earth is clothed with plants. All these plants are the results of propagation.

Plants perpetuate themselves and increase their numbers by many means. These means are sexual (by seeds and some kinds of spores), and asexual (by vegetative parts).

Seeds are the results of the fertilization of the ovule (strictly of the egg-nucleus of the ovule) by the germ-nucleus of the pollen-grain. The ovule, with its integuments and perhaps with adhering parts, ripens into the seed. Of many forms, sizes and colors are the seeds of plants. So various are they that we visualize no seed-form, as we visualize heart-form or roseform, and many of them are hardly recognizable. Yet they all have this in common, that they contain a dormant or quiescent embryo. This embryo is a rudimentary or minute plant. When the conditions are right for the plantlet to resume its growth, we say that the seed germinates.

Not only does the seed reproduce the parent, but it disperses the species. In fact, the word disseminate means to sow or scatter seeds, although we now disseminate knowledge as well as seeds. The act of falling from the receptacle places the seed in a different position from that of its parent stock. Often the seed is carried by wind, being whirled by means of wings, as in maple and ash ; floated by means of down or plumes, as in thistle, dandelion and poplar; driven on the snow and ice from stalks that stand stiff in the winter. It may be carried on the coats of animals and in clothing, holding fast by hooks and barbs of many kinds. Some seeds are ejected forcibly from their capsules, as in the jewel-weed or touch-me-not and the witch-hazel. Many seeds and fruits are carried long distances in ocean currents ; the coconut is the familiar citation. Seeds are transported in the removal of earth, by the commerce in many commodities and by floods that denude the land and carry away its substance. All over the earth the seeds have traveled. Clear a piece of land ever so carefully, till it until all the germinating seeds are killed, remove all the trees and mow the land for miles around, then leave the place alone for a few years, and behold the vegetation that arises !

Marvelous are the seeds : each one is an epitome of the species condensed into the minutest space, fashioned every one of its own kind, holding within its coats the possibilities of life on the planet. Everywhere they abound, so common and so familiar that they pass unnoticed. We have never thought of a world without seeds.

The abundance of seeds is one of the most signiflcant facts in nature. Every kind of tree and bush and herb yields such numbers that it might populate the earth. Branches bend with seeds ; often the winds are laden with them ; they rattle along the ground and pile themselves in the still places. The seeds of begonias and orchids are as dust. Thus are the chances multiplied that the species will not fail. In all this profusion one cannot conceive that sufficient seed will not fall on good ground to give the plant its chance to persist and to yield its fruit after its kind. Nature is prodigal in propagation. We do not fear that vegetation will cease from the earth.

Yet as abundant as are the seeds, seeming to make failure impossible, they may not germinate readily even in a state of nature. Many kinds are contained in impervious and stone¬ like co^^erings that are penetrated or broken only with difficulty ; and the casings may have to rot away or be cracked by fro.st or accident before the plantlet can escape. Other kinds have a more or less definite period of dormancy, within which time they will not germinate even though conditions are favorable. Seeds of many of the wild herbaceous perennials will not germinate till the following spring. Other seeds lie in the ground two or three years before germination. On the other hand, the seeds of some species germinate at once on maturity, even while on the parent plant as in the case of the mangrove. Special soils or other media, as to acidity, alkalinity or other qualities, may be necessary for germination and growth, or particular treatment, as etherization, may yield new results; and in some plants, as the orchids, it is now supposed that certain fungi are necessary to germination.

Thus far, the knowledge of conditions and aptitudes is chiefiy empirical, mostly the result of repeated and repeated trials, with their failures and successes. We must always learn these requisite conditions by experience; yet we are gradually dis' covering a rational basis for our operations, and we may expect marked progress in this direction in the years to come, render¬ ing the propagation of plants more definite and predictable.

THE PHYTON

It is not alone by seeds that plants multiply themselves. Many kinds rarely produce good seeds, and some of the eultivated species are multiplied practically exclusively by the nonsexual and vegetative parts. Familiar examples are the sweet potato, horse-radish, sugar-cane in the United States, banana. Some species seem to be losing the power to produce seeds with the enormous artificial development of other parts, as the Irish potato.

We may liken a plant to a colony of potential individuals, one individual being perhaps a node and a leaf, one grov/ing on another and the aggregation making up a complex organism

Every part of the plant which, when removed, is capable of reproducing itself and its parent, may be considered as an entity for purposes of propagation ; this potential individual has been called the phyton (Bailey, “ Survival of the Unlike,” 84, 101).

The phyton, or propagatable part, often detaches itself naturally. Certain willows shed their twigs, and these parts falling in congenial places may grow into new trees. The offsets of houseleeks (hen-and-chickens) detach easily. The bulblets on the stems of tiger-lilies, the “top onions,” the aerial tubers of cinnamon- vine and “air potato,” the leaves of bryophyllum, the leafy tufts on the fronds of certain ferns, a)l are naturally separable phytons or vegetative parts, useful in the propagation of the species. In fact, certain spores are asexual, at least not the result of direct sexual union, and are essentially detachable vegetative bodies or cells.

There are whole ranges of plants that exist in cultivation and are abundantly propagated independently of seeds. Even though the plant produce good seed, the leafy and stem struc¬ tures may afford the quickest and easiest means of propaga¬ tion. The class of “bulb plants,” represented by the lilies and amaryllis and gladiolus, are of this order. The hop is habitually propagated by cuttings, as are many of the orna¬ mental trees and shrubs; special varieties of rhododendron and the tree-fruits are multiplied and at the same time pre¬ served “true to name” by means of grafting; the cranberry is grown from slips; blackberry from root-cuttings; red rasp¬ berry from suckers; strawberry from runners; many kinds of begonias year after year by cuttings of stems and leaves ; roses generation after generation by cuttings.

In great numbers of domestic plants, seed-propagation rarely intervenes. The cultivator is so accustomed to this fact that he rightly accepts it as the order of nature.

THE COMMERCE IN SEEDS

Once a matter of home-growing and supply, the trade in seeds and bulbs has come to be a business of sufficient volume in the United States to warrant separate statement in the Census. The total value of flower and vegetable seeds pro¬ duced in 1909 was upwards of $1,400,000, as compared with $826,000 ten years earlier ; of clover seed, $6,900,000 in round numbers as against $5,359,000 ; all grass seed, $15,137,000 and $8,228,000. These figures represent the value of the seed crops themselves, but they are at the same time an indication of the vast agricultural croppage they supply with seed and of the notable increase in general crop-growing. Aside from these reported estimates, the aggregate of seeds grown and saved in the home garden and in the field for home use would undoubtedly surprise us if it could be known.

The increasing total value of seeds probably does not indi¬ cate alone an increase in production. Seeds are intrinsically more valuable decade by decade because more carefully grown and bred. Formerly plant-breeding was mostly a question of producing new kinds or varieties; its significance now lies more in the bettering of existing varieties by means of careful and rational selection, whereby yield is increased, as well as quality and uniformity of stand. The importance of seed¬ breeding is now so well accepted in the public mind that the discriminating planter of staple crops no longer asks merely for “seeds” any more than the stock-raiser asks merely for “cows”; the quality of the seeds is as important to the corngrower as is the quality of the cows to the dairyman. Many persons now make a particularity of breeding seeds of staple crops with care and skill ; this business will increase in volume and importance.

So essential is seed productior to the welfare of the people that governments have enacted laws for protection against impure, unviable and misnamed seeds, as similar laws have been drawn for protection in fertilizers and foods. This body of law is now extensive.

The United States and Canada have depended largely on Europe for flower and vegetable seeds, and even for some of the staple field crops, as sugar-beet. The necessary labor has been at command in Europe and the growers there have de¬ veloped the requisite experience and skill ; and the people here have been preoccupied with the large conquest of a con¬ tinent. The Great War has challenged this situation and has stimulated seed-production in North America; it is to be expected that we shall not be so dependent again. ATt we shall need the seeds from other countries where special skill has been developed and the handwork is available; and, more-

Fig. 2. Special parts of the country in which

over, we need the comity of international trade and supply if we are to develop the proper fellowship among the peoples of the earth. In proportion as all peoples are sufficient unto themselves will a real league of nations be difficult to accom¬ plish.

Prior to the War, England supplied America liberally with seeds of beet, turnip, carrot, radish, parsley, parsnip, cabbage and of most of the common annual flowers. Germany and Austria furnished considerable seed of flowers, and also of many of the common vegetables, particularly radish, turnip, beet and carrot. Denmark supplied beets and other root-crops as well as the cabbage-like vegetables. France sent to us radish, carrot and seeds of annual flowers. Japan supplied seeds of rape and similar plants. What effect the War will have on the permanent sources of seed supply cannot yet be stated.

The accompanying maps, Figs. 1 and 2, show the special sections in the United States for the production of field seeds and vegetable seeds respectively, as reported by R. A. Oakley in an interesting artiele on “The Seed Supply of the Nation” in the Yearbook of the Department of Agriculture for 1917.

The figures of seed-production given on page 5 will undoubt¬ edly be greatly increased by the forthcoming census. Ap¬ parently the United States requires upward of 110,000,000 pounds of red clover seed, for example ; at present farm prices (1919), the value of it would be about $66,000,000.

Persons interested in the seed-production of the United States should be in touch with the Seed Reporting Service,, Bureau of Markets, U. S. Department of Agrieulture, and should consult the Seed Reporter, a monthly publication.

Not only in seeds but in bulbs and living plants have the North Amerieans benefited by the skill in plant propa¬ gation of the Europeans. Many prized international relations have grown up with this importation ; a good literature and personal association have developed. What is to be the future of this fraternalism is a source of anxiety to many thoughtful persons.