FERTILITY AND FROST

New Zealand Mail, 29 January 1902, Page 54

FERTILITY AND FROST

In a recent visit to a large nursery. I saw two most striking examples of the effect of vigorous vegetable growth in counteracting frost (says a writer in the “Rural New Yorker”). Part of a field of cow peas, planted as a cover crop, was green and making some growth, while in the other part but few living plants could be seen, nearly all having been killed by a recent heavy frost! Tho nurseryman told me that the space covered by the green peas had been heavily manured just before planting time, and that the rest of the field had received no enrichment. The second illustration was even more marked. A large block of young apples, two years from the graft, had on one side several acres of rather weak-growing trees; on these there were but few fresh green leaves, nearly all having been browned by frost. On the remainder of the block the trees had made a good summer growth, and were full of vigour; the foliage of these was green and almost unharmed, especially on the strong growing upper, shoots. In this ease the less vigorous plants were on land from which trees had been removed but two years previous, and which had not recovered from the depletion of fertility by this former crop. The more fertile paH had gone through the usual nurseryman’s rotation of several years without trees. In both instances the land was flat; where elevation or air drainage could have had no effect, and where there were no frosts, or water, or changes in soil, or other apparent factors that could have brought about the differences mentioned.

A number of similar examples along the same line which have come under my observation could be given. I call to mind a field of celery at Kalamazoo, in which soil fertility seemed to offset a hard frost. In a forestry experiment in Utah I noticed two successive seasons that the upper leaves and shoots, which we usually speak of as “tender tips,” and which, of course, are best nourished and most vigorous, kept green after the lower leaves were badly frost-bi-tfi'i, This test was a good one, as there vvei<3 ‘.-~r*nty acres of young trees

of many varieties growing under uni- j form conditions. In fields of grain we j often see green oases late in the season —always the richest soil. The vegetation in barnyards and dooryards, spots of great fertility, keeps green until , snow. Winter killing of grains is most : common on poor soils. Vitality in | plants varies with the fertility of the soil. Not only are heat, drought and disease counteracted by increased, vital- ; ity through good nourishment, hut frost as well, and to a considerable extent, a fact not fully appreciated, and one which could be made of no little service in our climate. —U. P. Hedrick.