THE GARDENERS' CHRONICLE OF AMERICA, 



233 



RED SPRUCE. 



Cones of red spruce should be gathered from about 

 September 5 to 25. They are very pitchy and require 

 careful treatment, such as a frequent stirring in the curing 

 room to break up the pitch}- film about each cone, which 

 keeps them from drying and tends to stick them together 

 in large masses. As soon as they dry so that they will 

 not stick together, all dirt should be removed. This is to 

 obtain clean seeds, because it is very hard to separate the 

 dirt from the seed after the cones open; screening will not 

 altogether remove the particles of dirt of the same size as 

 the seed, and fanning will not separate particles of the 

 same weight. The pitch makes thrashing very irksome. 



WHITE SPRUCE. 



The cones of white spruce should be collected between 

 September 1 and 20. The treatment is the same as for 

 red spruce. 



STORING SEEDS. 



Seeds of all conifers should be stored in a cold room over 

 winter. Cellars or stables are not good storage places, 

 because in the former the air is moist and there is no free 

 circulation, and in the latter ammonia fumes will injure 

 the seed. They may be inclosed in a bag, and to be safe 

 from mice should be suspended from the ceiling. Or they 

 may be layered in boxes with moist sand and left in a place 

 cold enough to keep them from germinating before spring. 

 The sand can be sifted from the seed, which must be 

 sown as soon as they are separated ; otherwise they will 

 dry out and deteriorate rapidly. This method of layering 

 is called ripening by some commercial nurserymen, al- 

 though there is no actual ripening. Still another and a 

 successful method for winter storage of seed, especially 

 for large quantities, is by the use of tight tin cans, each 

 having a capacity of 50 pounds, placed in an unheated 

 building. 



ESTABLISHING A FOREST BY PLANTING 

 TREES. 



The right choice of species in making a forest planta- 

 tion of conifers is of prime importance. This choice can 

 be made only after full investigation of all conditions, 

 and before starting a nursery or beginning forest plant- 

 ing it is exceedingly desirable that the owner seek expert 

 advice from the State or the Federal Government, or 

 from private foresters. If only a small plantation is to be 

 made, or if a nursery is impracticable, the owner should 

 purchase the trees from a reliable nurseryman. If ex- 

 tensive areas are to be planted, a forest nursery should be 

 established. 



NURSERY PRACTICE — LOCATION OF NURSERY. 



The nursery should be conveniently located, either for 

 conditions of labor and supervision or for nearness to the 

 land to be planted, or for both, if possible. If the plant- 

 ing operations are to be extensive and suitable, conditions 

 can be found at a central point where faciHties for labor 

 and transportation are good, a permanent nursery, should 

 be established. But if the planting is on a small scale, 

 and the cost of shipping the seedlings to the planting site 

 is low, it will be advisable to establish the nursery con- 

 venient to supervision and labor. The initial cost of the 

 nursery will, of course, be determined largely by the quan- 

 tity of planting stock required and the number of years 

 the nursery will be in use. 



A good soil is prerequisite to success, and even though 

 an unfavorable one can be artificially improved, great 

 care should be used in its selection. A rich sandy loam 



soil is best. It should be further enriched with fertilizer 

 in an available form to be taken up easily by the young 

 plants. .Seed beds, particularly, must be heavily fertilized. 

 Expenditure for this is economy in the end, especially in 

 producing large numbers of trees. Experiments with 

 commercial fertilizers have not been carried far enough 

 to determine the best for use on seed beds. It is known, 

 however, that ground-bone meal, as a top dressing, has 

 severely injured one-year-old spruce seedlings. Well- 

 rotted barn manures probably are best if they do not con- 

 tain live weed seeds. A compost heap should be made each 

 year and allowed to rot three years before it is used. This 

 can be arranged by having three piles, so that when one pile 

 is used another one is made. All fertilizers will probably 

 be improved by the addition of imleached hardwood ashes. 

 The ground should lie so that water will not stand on it 

 in winter and spring, but on the other hand should not 

 slope so that the beds and paths will be washed or gullied. 

 .A. northern exposure has an advantage over others in that 

 the frost does not go out of the ground so early in the 

 spring that it will freeze later and thaw again, and so 

 heave the plants out of the ground. This heaving out 

 results in loss unless these seedlings are promptly reset be- 

 fore the roots dry out from exposure to sun and wind. 

 The nursery might be placed to decided advantage in a 

 sheltered spot so that the ground will be protected from 

 drying winds in hot weather, and from winter winds that 

 would blow the snow away when it is needed as a protect- 

 ive covering. 



Water for irrigation or sprinkling is at times a neces- 

 sity and if it can be had at a small outlay the cost of rais- 

 ing the young trees will be lessened and the assurance of 

 success greatly increased. If care is taken to select a 

 place not overgrown with weeds it will save much money 

 and labor in future cultivation. \\'eed seeds may be killed 

 bv burning brush on the site. The ground should be 

 turned in the fall preceding the first spring planting, or 

 better still, might be used in growing potatoes the first 

 year in order that the soil may be thoroughly worked up. 



Wherever the nursery is located, it should be well 

 fenced. Woven-wire field fence is best, because with it 

 snow will tend to lie on the level rather than to drift, as 

 it does with a picket or board fence. 



AREA OF NURSERY. 



An area of approximately 1% acres will annually pro- 

 duce 75,000 four-year-old transplants, yet if it is possible 

 to secure, at a reasonable cost, half as much more land, 

 or nearly two acres, this will permit a rotation of crop 

 every two years with the same annual output. In other 

 words, two-thirds of the nursery will be in trees, while a 

 soiling crop is grown on the other one-third. Every year 

 a different division of the nursery will be sown to some 

 other crop to iminove the soil, so that every third year 

 the rotation will I)i.- complete and the soil crop be repeated 

 in each division. 



Both see<llings and transjilants may be raised in forest 

 nurseries, but transplants are generally the more desirable 

 for forest planting. The object of transplanting is to de- 

 velop a stronger and more compact root system. One 

 transjilanting is ordinarily sufficient to produce sturdy 

 stock for use on sites requiring stronger plants than seed- 

 lings. In this bulletin two-year-old seedlings are untrans- 

 planted trees two \ cars old, and four-year-old transplants 

 arc four-year-old trees once transplanted. 



GROUND PLAN. 



After the site and extent of the nursery have been de- 

 cided, beds should lie laid out and paths and roads located. 

 Should the nursor_\ work be limited to a few beds, the 

 best and most convenient place for them would be in one 

 corner of a garden. But a large nursery should be laid 



