LOSS DUE TO EXPOSURE IN THE TRANSPLANTING 

 OF WHITE PINE SEEDLINGS. 



By E. A. ZlEGLER. 



The very careful handling of coniferous planting stock be- 

 tween nursery and final planting site is one of the "A. B. C's" 

 in the training of every forestry student beginning work in sil- 

 viculture and its importance may be easily proven. The very 

 obviousness of the need seems' to have kept it out of the field 

 of American forest experiment. However, now and then one 

 may find an over-zealous forester actually giving his plants un- 

 necessary protection and thereby increasing their cost. When 

 one remembers that an extra twenty cents a thousand added to 

 the cost of the plants will in 80 years at 5% add $11.90 to the 

 acre cost of the crop (planting 1200 per acre) — or more than 

 sufficient to establish a new stand by planting a little experi- 

 mental data may have some value in this direction. 



With a motive arising from several sources this subject for ex- 

 periment was suggested for thesis work to students of the Penn- 

 sylvania State Forest Academy. First, there was held in mind 

 the training for the student in simple original experiment and 

 the proper recording and analysis of experimental results; sec- 

 ond, the emphasizing of the greater susceptibility of coniferous 

 stock to serious injury by exposure to drying out : and third, the 

 extent to which protective measures should be carried without 

 adding unnecessarily to the cost of the stock. 



The experiment was carried on by Mr. Robert R. Neefe and 

 Mr. Horace F. Critchley of the Class of 1913, and the results 

 are taken from their notes. 



The material selected was average quality two-year white pine 

 seedlings, since the Pennsylvania Department of Forestry is 

 planting two-year stock principally. The experiment was carried 

 out in the seven-acre Academy nursery in the spring of 1913. 

 The plan required each man to run an independent series of 

 exposures of one thousand plants. First, 100 plants were set 

 out with the exposure reduced to zero as near as possible as a 

 check ; then nine lots of 100 each were fully exposed to sun and 



