106 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



Scotch Pine at Bretton Woods, N. H., Planted by the Bretton Woods Co. 



failure is only three to five percent. 

 They are so hardy that I have picked 

 up New York State transplants at 

 Saranac, pulled up with no more 

 ceremony than one would devote to a 

 head of lettuce, and then after carrying 

 them down to my place in South Jersey, 

 they laid firm hold on the soil and next 

 hear had two feet of crown to show me. 

 Granite base soil of New York, sandy 

 loam of South Jersey, it was all grist to 

 those lusty young white pines. A 

 Scotch pine seedling taken at the same 

 time only barely recovered from this 

 treatment. The transplants come to 

 you in April or May, upon application 

 to the State forest service made some- 

 time during the winter. They will 

 arrive buried in wet sphagnum moss and 

 you are to guard them above all things 

 from drying out, for a sun-dried root 

 is a dead root, nor all your penitence and 

 tears will avail to lure it back to life 

 again. If you are not ready to plant, 

 heel them in a shallow trench on the 

 planting site. Your planting gang will 

 be in units of two men and should get 

 in 600 plants a day. The hole man goes 

 ahead with a mattock and lays bare a 

 shallow hole with a single stroke of the 



mattock. He must have a good eye for 

 alignment on the sighting poles, and 

 either step his paces evenly or space 

 his holes with a stick gauge. His mate 

 follows with a pail full of transplants 

 with their roots buried in muddy water. 

 He plants the trees, surrounding the 

 roots with the topsoil lifted by the 

 mattock man finishing off with the base 

 soil to discourage weeds. At the end of 

 the row they move the sighting stakes 

 and start back. On slopes and dry 

 ground this will be all the planting 

 labor expended, as Nature is kind in 

 May and the young trees will not lack 

 for showers and moisture. In rocky 

 soil the mattock man will have harder 

 going and may need a helper to dis- 

 lodge boulders in his path or dynamite 

 to destroy them. 



If you run into swampy soil the trees 

 will sirrely die of wet feet unless you 

 use the mound planting method of 

 Baron Manteuffel. The mattack man 

 cuts two large crescents of sod, and the 

 planter first builds a little mound of 

 earth of the soil in the sod roots, plants 

 the young tree with its roots in the 

 mound and then covers the mound with 

 the two crescents of sod, grass side in, 



