154 Forestry Quarterly 



SILVICULTURE, PROTECTION AND EXTENSION 



The practice of transplanting into nursery 



New rows, especially of spruce, which is most 



Nursery widely practised, is described by Oberforster 



Practice. Petith, who points out that the introduction of 



machinery and proper utensils has permitted 

 desirable changes in the practice. The principle of transplant- 

 ing in the youngest possible stage, one-year-old if feasible, has 

 become practicable by the use of Hacker's transplanting machine, 

 because of its quick, cheap work and saving of space, while for 

 hand setting the one- year old plants proved too tender. [The ma- 

 chine consists of a two- wheeled, self-propelled seat from which 

 the planter directs a rill board which presses the rills into which 

 the plants are to be set into the ground, and the lath, into which 

 the plants are hung in equally-distant slots, which are fed inde- 

 pendently. The full apparatus costs $50 ; a simplified form $12. 

 — Ed.] All means should be employed, therefore, to produce 

 stout yearlings by early sowing, lengthening the period of vege- 

 tation and cultivation. Early sowing is not well done by hand 

 on account of frosty hands. Here again the use of the machine, 

 Hacker's, (or, with us, the Planet Junior) secures uniform re- 

 sults. Only under unfavorable local conditions is it necessary to 

 leave the seedling two years in seedbed. Formerly two years were 

 considered necessary to produce a result in root and top develop- 

 ment which gave a perference to transplanted stock. With the 

 transplanting machine experience has shown that 75 per cent, of 

 the stock attains in one year proper form for use. The balance, 

 transplanted a second time, furnishes in another year most superior 

 material with bushy roots and not unduly developed top, but if 

 left two years in the first bed roots lengthen too much (up to two 

 feet) and become unmanageable. 



The objection to cost, which might be urged against a second 

 trau.splanting, is not justified. With labor cost for men at 53 

 cents, for women at 30 cents, digging the ground costs at the rate 

 of $3 to $5 per quarter acre (we would plow it for about that 

 price). Weeding, covering and taking up require about $18 per 

 quarter acre. Fertilizing has been omitted. The transplant- 

 ing, very much influenced by the spacing, i.e., length of time dur- 

 ing which transplants are to remain in bed, cost 17 cents per M. 

 if in rows 4 inch apart and 2 inch in the row. This means 160,000 



