FORESTRY ON THE COUNTRY ESTATE 



361 



Reforesting a Denuded Hillside, Merdare, French Alps. 



all the seedlings have sprouted and re- 

 quire air and sunlight. On mild days 

 the lath crate is also removed, leaving 

 nothing but the wire cage over the bed, 

 which keeps out birds and prevents 

 them from picking off the tender young 

 shoots of conifers, of which they are 

 very fond. If the sun gets hot enough 

 to wilt the young plants the lath crate 

 goes on again, producing the artificial 

 shade that is gotten by a north exposure 

 in the forest nursery. The principal 

 enemy to be feared is, however, "damp- 

 ing oft," a fungus disease which attacks 

 the young conifers when conditions of 

 cold and dampness are maintained in 

 the seed bed for any length of time. 

 During the second year the seed bed 

 requires not much attention beyond 

 weeding, although, during the first 

 year, the lath cage has to be on most 

 of the time. At the third spring the 

 seedlings are dug up. put in a trans- 

 planting jig. a sort 3f spring clip four 

 feet long with grooves spaced four to 

 six inches for the seedling stems. The 

 pivot roots are clipped with a single 

 sweep of the knife and the young seed- 

 lings set out in the transplant beds to 



remain there two years more. The cost 

 is about $3.90 a thousand to produce 

 four-year transplants of pine or spruce 

 by this method, and it is a practical way 

 of handling large quantities — millions — 

 of forest trees, w^ith very few losses and 

 not much area per tree of nursery space. 

 It is particularly adapted to conifers, 

 but by no means so handy for the broad- 

 leaved species because of the much 

 greater room that the latter require. 



We have now an outline of the two 

 principal nursery methods in use today 

 in Europe and at home : how do they 

 apply to the owner of the country es- 

 tate? In the first place, he will not be 

 particularly interested in raising great 

 quantities of any one species but will 

 rather want a nursery that will have 

 versatility enough to prepare quite a 

 number of difi'erent species of tree seed- 

 lings in batches of a thousand or so, 

 with the idea of avoiding the expense of 

 paying the commercial nursery prices 

 for young trees, which run into a great 

 deal of money that might just as well 

 be saved. Our nursery should have a 

 few crates of the 4'x6' size, that can be 

 handled bv one man. for raising coni- 



