494 Forestry Quarterly. 



Mound planting has been used on areas where the soil con- 

 ditions are entirely unfitted for hole planting i. e. in the soil- 

 less weed covered limestone regions of the arid Karst and in very 

 swampy sites. Here it serves the purpose of giving the plant a 

 vigorous start in good earth, safe from the encroachment of 

 choking weeds or well above the ground level of the swamp 

 water. The method is as follows : The site of the mound is 

 cleared of all grass, weeds and debris. On this site is piled earth 

 from the near-by area taking care to avoid all loose bits of weeds 

 and grass. The actual planting is exactly like that already de- 

 scribed to lessen the drying effect of wind and sun, and to pre- 

 vent heaving by frost and washing away by rain, the bits of sod 

 are piled, grass down, around the moun^. 



The planting of two, three, or more plants in a single hole is 

 a survival of the transition stage between regeneration by seeding 

 and by planting. It is still used occasionally on adverse sites on 

 the principle that if one plant dies its neighbor will probably 

 survive. 



The use of balled plants because of the high cost of transpor- 

 tation, is confined to filling fail places in sowing and planting 

 sites where the material is easily obtained, and on exceedingly 

 adverse sites or wherever cost is no object. Two and three year 

 old plants are chosen for the purpose ; older plants are too bulky 

 and are too apt to have their roots injured in the process of lift- 

 ing. A specially constructed hollow spade ("hohlborer") is used 

 to lift the plant and to prepare the corresponding hole in which 

 it is to be placed. 



In his book, referred to above, Oberforstrat Reuss inveighs 

 against what he calls the ''instrument method" of planting. In 

 this category he places not only the elaborate inventions of re- 

 cent decades, but even the seemingly innocent and often used 

 expedient of firming the planting hole with the foot. When care- 

 lessly done this often injures the tender bark or presses the 

 earth together too compactly, so he will have none of it. 



As for the many planting instruments he aptly says : "With- 

 out exception these devices are the result of short-sighted en- 

 deavors to reduce the cost of planting. They have done great 

 harm to the forest and where ever they have been used they have 

 been judged only from the one-sided standpoint of quantity, of 



