FORESTRY ON THE COUNTRY ESTATE 



363 



State Foresters Visiting the New York State Nursery at Lake Clear. State Forester Pettis of New 



York on the Extreme Left. 



and sown in the nursery beds broad- 

 cast on about inch spacing where they 

 will do for the first season. The win- 

 ter rotting clears them of the samara 

 wings and prepares the seed for germi- 

 nation. They are ready for transplant- 

 ing in the second spring, and for the 

 forest in the third spring. Sugar and 

 silver maple samaras ripen in October 

 and fall to the ground. The seeds can 

 be kept through the winter in mod- 

 erately damp sand, or else sown at 

 once in their beds, in which case a 

 larger percentage of them will fail to 

 germinate. In either case, they will 

 come up the first spring, are trans- 

 ])lanted the second spring and are ready 

 for the forest in the third. For lirioden- 

 dron. the seeds should be sown the 

 autumn they ripen, being picked from 

 the sheath and sown in beds of fine, rich 

 sandy loam in a moist, shady location. 

 They will come up the following spring, 

 or, if sown in the spring, will come up 

 the following year. With the acorns 

 of the dozen species of oaks which you 

 will have to deal with in vour forest, an 



immediate fall planting is the best 

 course. They are apt to either germi- 

 nate or dry out if kept through the 

 winter in sand, and once germinated 

 your troubles come on apace. In my 

 own neighborhood the white oaks suc- 

 ceed in starting a number of seedlings 

 in the same fall the acorns come down, 

 while the red, blackjack, and chestnut 

 oaks usually hold over until spring and 

 we get a fine germination where there 

 is the least sun on the forest floor. The 

 first acorns down are always wormy, 

 so be chary about gathering them, but 

 the second big storm will fill the forest 

 with large, heavy, meaty acorns which 

 will sprout in a few weeks if planted 

 at once, and by mid-October the seed- 

 ling is three inches high and has two 

 to four small leaves on it. In colder 

 localities the acorns will not sprout 

 at all until the folowing spring. 



In one part of your nursery there 

 should be space reserved for saplings. 

 While four-year conifers are about 

 right for forest underplanting, a good 

 many of the broadleaved species will 



