Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1891-04-19
COLD STORAGE


COLD STORAGE EOR YOUNG TREES.
OF late we have seen articles in various
scientific publications speaking in high
terms of the newly discovered plan of keep
ing young nursery trees in cold storage for
time prior to planting out in the open
ground, or until the land outside has fairly
warmed up. 1t appears TO have been a
Berlin discovery, and IS thought to be one
that will prove of great advantage TO horti-
culture. The principle is undoubtedly 4
good one especially where applied III warm
countries. If we plant the tree out some
time during winter, in a warm country,
there are repeated but abortive efforts on
its part to start into growth, which tend
largely 10 exhaust its vitality ere the proper
growing season has arrived, but under cold
storage no such efforts are made. The
young tree lies entirely dormant until the
suitable conditions for its rapid and cOntin-
uOus growth have arrived, when, having
been set in the open ground, it at once
brings all its growing energy into play and
starts of with a regular boom, as it were.
The thing works on precisely the same
principle as governs in case of the cutting
to be grown as such, or the scion to be en-
ployed in grafting-we take these from the
parent tree and bury them in the ground
ere any growth has started. to hold them
in proper condition for use until the period
for their regular growth has arrived.
OF course no sensible man will confuse
this new cold storage Of nursery stock with
the old winter storage as practiced by
nurserymen at the North. The latter con-
sists in simply taking up and storing the
young trees in house or cellar where the
nurseryman can get at and handle them
through winter, thing he could not do
were they outside in a soil deeply frozen
and as hard as rock. The sole object of
cold storage is to hold back premature and
irregular growth, the which, of course,
would render the young tree more or less
sappy and tender. \ blizzard following
this Sappy condition is liable TO injIre the
young tree more or less even though it has
not yet been removed from the nurser., bed
if already transplanted the effect could
not be otherwise than decidedly against it.
The newly transplanted tree is weak and
sick in a measure. 1t has no extra vitality
to expend in combating unfavorable eff
fects; therefore, premature growth to be
followed by killing frost, while it might
not destroy the tree outright, would GER
tainly work upon it 4 very serious injury
Cold storage effectually guards the young
tree against any such trouble, for it main
tains a complete suspension of growth on
to that time in the season when there is no
danger whatever that the growth once
started, will not go directly along without
interruption.
There is no kind of good scientific reason
for transplanting young tree previous to
the opening of its regular growing season.
Not q few will stand ready to oppose this
notion, doubtless, on the plea that the roots
Of tree grow constantly through the win
ter the same as in summer. All well-in-
formed horticulturists know this to be q
mistake. The root-growth of Z tree is rig
idly governed by the trees condition above
ground. Without more or less sappy
condition of the tree above ground there
cannot possibly be any root-growth below.