REVIEWS 325 



Nursery Practice on the National forests. By C. R. Tillotson. Bul- 

 letin No. 479, U. S. Department of Agriculture, May, 1917. 86 pp. 



Serious efforts in nursery practice and planting on the National For- 

 ests date from 1905, when these forests were transferred from the 

 Department of the Interior to the Department of Agricvilture and 

 placed under direct control of the National Forest Service. After 

 passing through a period of various vicissitudes due to overconfidence 

 and lack of experience, artificial regeneration has steadily improved, 

 until today it is upon a well-established economic basis. At the present 

 time about 10,000,000 seedlings and transplants are required annually 

 for planting on the National Forests. Tillotson, in the bulletin under 

 review, has brought together the most useful of the experience gained 

 during the past 12 to 15 years in the many National Forest nurseries. 

 The bulletin presents the results of the study and experience of many 

 different members of the Forest Service, compiled, weighed, and har- 

 monized by the author. As it is a treatise on the present nursery prac- 

 tice on the National Forests, based upon extensive experiments and 

 experience, it should prove of value and interest to all who are operat- 

 ing or are employed in forest nurseries. 



The topics included and their order of presentation are: (i) Intro- 

 duction, (2) Factors influencing the selection of a nursery site, (3) 

 Size and arrangement of nursery, (4) Outfit, (5) Nursery operations, 

 (6) Removal of nursery stock from nursery, (7) Diseases and in- 

 juries in nursery. (8) Fertilizers, (9) Cost of operations. 



Under factors influencing the selection of a nursery site, special 

 emphasis is attached to available water supply, quality of the soil, acces- 

 sibility, species to be raised, and the climate. The author states : "At 

 the Savenac Nursery, where ditch irrigation is practiced ; at the Bessey 

 Nursery, where flooding of the beds is practiced, and at the Wind 

 River Nursery, where garden sprinklers are used exclusively, about 

 4,800, 225, and 75 gallons, respectively, of water per minute are avail- 

 able. The yearly capacity of the nurseries is 4,000.000. 2.000,000. and 

 2,000,000 plants, and the areas actually occupied by nursery stock are 

 15, 3, and 4 acres, respectively." The above appears to show that 

 sprinkling is advantageous when the water supply is barely sufficient 

 for the best results. 



Forest Service experience has not indicated that the nurser\- soil 

 should be similar to the planting site, especially when that is poor. It 

 has shown that the best results can l)e obtained on a soil with a sandy 

 foundation, particularly a sandy loam of good dei)th — fresh, friable, and 



