656 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



Forest Academy, with $10,000 per annum, is most economically managed 

 on a little over 3 per cent. 



However, the exigencies of a report to the legislature are satisfied 

 with the brief statement of expenditures, the student of forest economy 

 would welcome a closer analysis and classification of the lumped items 

 which appear under Surveys, Labor, Incidentals. This is done in 

 fullest detail under separate chapter headings. 



There is a special report on the nursery work, from which we learn 

 that the four large and 22 small nurseries produced over four million 

 plants in 1915, worth over $10,000. Some of the plants used to be 

 sold at cost, but a recent law permits the giving of seedlings free of 

 charge to individuals for reforesting purposes. So far only a little 

 over one hundred thousand have been so disposed, the State forests 

 requiring the bulk of the production, some four million having been 

 planted in 1915 and over 16.5 million since 1899. More than half 

 the seedlings were of white pine and 30 per cent Norway spruce, but 

 the prevalence of weevil and blister rust will no doubt reduce the grow- 

 ing of white pine. 



A very detailed account is kept of all nursery operations under 

 more than sixty subheadings, but only one nursery, Mont Alto, under 

 Professor Retan, appears with a complete report and desirable detail. 



This nursery contains nearly four million plants, half of them ready 

 to ship. Various economies have reduced the average cost of 2-year 

 seedlings in the bed by 70 cents under the best previous year to $1.19 

 per M, a figure "unheard of in this nursery." The cost of this nursery 

 runs somewhat over $2,000, student labor being in part employed. 



From another nursery, cost of producing stock is reported as $1.29 

 for 2-year-old white pine, $2.02 for 3-year, and $1.88 for 2-1-year trans- 

 plants; $2.67 for 1-year red oak. A Pennsylvania transplant board is 

 mentioned — we have seen no description of it — as reducing the trans- 

 plant cost by 30 cents. 



Prof. Retan comes to the conclusion that "fertilizers benefit the 

 soil only temporarily at best; physical treatment reaches the root of 

 the trouble and the roots of the plants," as explaining the remarkable 

 result of the application of a surface cover of charcoal in plant produc- 

 tion. Fertilizer experiments, carried on in several nurseries, with some 

 twenty combinations of fertilizer, seem to support this finding. 



Great stress is laid on water supply, especially in the first year, but 

 also in the second year proper irrigation develops superior quality and 

 weight. 



