FOREST TREE NURSERIES 



By O. R. CRAFT 



(Illustrations by Courtesy of Mr, G, W. Hill) 



THAT the amount of forest plant- the wounds may invite the entrance of 

 ing done each year is increasing fungi and insects. In answer to an in- 

 is evident from the uniform re- cjuiry on this point, A. Knechtel, a New 

 port of increased sales by the nursery- York sta,te forester, writes : "We have 

 men. A nurseryman at Aitkin Minn., done no root pruning of evergreens, but 

 last year shipped four hundred thou- in transplanting hardwoods root prun- 

 sand jack-pine seedlings to Nebraska ing has resulted successfully." Con- 

 alone. There are now nine Government cerning the nursery beds, Mr. Knechtel 

 nurseries where seedlings are grown adds : 



for planting on the National Forests, "The sandy soil is enriched by the 

 twenty-one state nurseries, and 137 free use of black mvick and ashes. The 

 dealers in nursery stock, many of whom nursery is provided with a water tank, 

 grow their own stock. from which leads a system of water 

 A great many planters are beginning pipes, so that the trees can be irrigated 

 to grow their own seedlings for plant- when necessary. A free use of seed 

 ing, and shade screens, preventives for gives fully stocked seed beds. For a 

 damping off, transplanting, and root bed twelve by four feet, we use three- 

 pruning are becoming subjects of dis- fourths pound to one pound of pine 

 cussion. seed, and one-half pound to three- 

 There is considerable difference of fourths pound of spruce seed, ac- 

 opinion as to the comparative merits of cording to the size of the seed. Damp- 

 high and low screens, and though many ing off is hindered by making the 

 favor the former, Mr. David Hill, of beds with convex surface, and by using 

 Dundee, 111., after a thorough trial of screens as a box around the bed instead 

 both kinds, gives it as his opinion that of boards, so that the trees get a free 

 low screens in frames of four feet circulation of air. But the trouble has 

 square, are preferable. It is the prac- not been entirely prevented. This year 

 tice of Mr. Hill to transplant all coni- the trees damped off very considerably, 

 fers when one year old from seed (ex- The use of sand thoroughly dried and 

 cept those of rapid-growing species, sprinkled on the beds on close, damp 

 which are sold for special purposes at days, has helped somewhat. Next year 

 the age of one year). Then each sub- we shall try heated powdered charcoal, 

 sequent spring, until sold, the trees in We may also devise some means by 

 the transplant rows are root pruned, which a current of air can be passed 

 the pruner being set one-half inch deep- over the beds artificially on such close 

 er each time. The effect of transplanting days. Burlap is used instead of leaves 

 is to stimulate root development and as a covering for the winter." 

 make the little trees stocky and hardy. As Mr. Perley Spaulding writes, in 

 The difference in the trees is noticeable Bulletin No. 4, just issued by the Bu- 

 in the accompanying illustrations. reau of Plant Industry, damping-off 

 With some nurserymen there is a diseases are great obstacles to the suc- 

 question as to the advisability of root cessful production of tree seedlings, 

 pruning because of the belief that in- Mr. Spaulding conducted experiments 

 jury to the root permanently interferes first in the greenhouse and then in the 

 with its natural development, and that field in the New York State nurseries at 



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