GROWING TREES FROM SEED. 161 



scatters them all over the West. He sowed the seeds in 

 beds, about four feet wide, raised slightly, with a foot-path 

 between them. These seeds are not buried deeply. Most 

 seeds require only a slight covering ; the most important 

 conditions are shelter from extreme dryness and the direct 

 rays of the sun. 



Strips of board, six to eight inches wide and four feet long, 

 are placed the length of a lath four feet apart. Laths are 

 nailed on, the width of a lath, one and a half inches apart. 

 These screens are multiplied to cover acres of those seed-beds, 

 and they assist in protecting the tender seedling. The screens 

 are kept on for a year, or longer. Some seeds are more 

 successful with a more continuous shelter. He used various 

 devices. Thin white cotton-cloth was suspended about a foot 

 from the ground, open at the sides. Then posts, seven to 

 eight feet high, with rails across the tops, and over all a thick 

 covering of oak branches, cut while in full leaf, and so securely 

 confined on that a man could walk on them. This was con- 

 tinued over acres of prairie-ground. He uses these shelters 

 till the trees become well established. Dry summer heat 

 and a lack of rain, is often very destructive the first summer, 

 and sometimes the second, and make shelter necessary for 

 the preservation of the uncounted thousands of seedling 

 trees. 



All the maples, elms and birches grow freely from seed, 

 and can be transplanted successfully. Oaks can be trans- 

 planted from forests, if taken when small, the tops to be cut 

 back severely nearly to the ground, about the time of the 

 swelling of the buds ; shelter the first season with boughs. 



In planting the acorns as they ripen in autumn, in a moist, 

 porous soil, with a covering of hard-wood leaves, they push 

 out the radicle root before winter. The following spring 

 and summer a growth of four to twelve inches may be looked 

 for. The second spring, take up and cut back the tap-root 

 six inches below the point where the seedling came out of the 

 ground, and plant two inches deeper than the tree grew. 

 The lateral roots then start readily, and we find success quite 

 sure, if the seedlings have been well protected between the 

 time of digging and transplanting. If, without this root- 

 pruning while young, you undertake to transplant the oak, 



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