pple trees I found in my particular
situation that nitrate of soda is all I want. I have what is called a
Porter's clay soil on the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. I use that
and then my trees get busy and grow. They make rapid growth even the
first season with a handful of nitrate and for my three year old trees
half a pound is enough. That is what my soil seems to need and we must
use what the soil is short on. That is my interpretation of my situation
and it works.

THE PRESIDENT: Who can tell us whether nitrate of soda is good for nut
trees? Can you, Mr. Simpson?

MR. SIMPSON: In the South, we do not think so.

THE PRESIDENT: The reason I asked, is that I have been studying that. I
wrote Mr. Potter a letter suggesting that he use some on his young nut
trees to see what it would do, and later I found out that all through
the South it was not regarded as desirable. It seems they claim it
starts pecan trees into an active growth but when they stop they make a
very sudden stop and don't start growing any more. I want to get this in
the record right here. You understand that is the general belief
throughout the South, do you not?

MR. SIMPSON: Yes sir, it is not considered good.

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Smith has made a very careful study of fruit trees
and knows its effect on them from experiments, but it is well perhaps to
consider fruit and nut trees separately.

PROFESSOR SMITH: I should suggest to anybody who is thinking of working
with trees, to get some seedling pecans and plant them and then
fertilize some of them and others not, in the same kind of soil. In
that way he can get his own fertilizer conclusions at a small expense
and then he will know what his own soil needs.

MR. MCCOY: We fertilized seedling pecans in a clay soil and we decided
the trees we did not fertilize got along better than the ones we did. Of
course that ground is better where the trees are than on the average
farm. We used nitrate of soda and potash but we decided the ones we
didn't fertilize did the best.

MR. POTTER: I put two pounds of nitrate of soda around each tree and the
English walnuts I used it on budded out very shortly after using it, but
along about June they died. The pecan trees we used it around grew
fairly well, but some of them, one in particular, appeared to remain
dormant, almost, until about two months ago when it commenced growing
and is now growing very rapidly. So you see I don't know where I am at.

THE PRE