A MECHANICAL TREE PLANTER. 



By Forman T. McLean. 



A machine which will plant forest trees more rapidly and as 

 well as a man with a mattock can do it, would be a useful instru- 

 ment to foresters. The device shown in the accompanying dia- 

 gram gives promise of doing this. It is an invention of Mr. N. P. 

 Jensen, of Ephraim, Utah. It was tested experimentally at the 

 Utah Experiment Station in the spring of 1913, and gave very 

 satisfactory results. 



The machine is specially adapted to plant tap-rooted conifers 

 on rough, brushy lands and burns, where hand planting, in holes 

 dug with a mattock or spade, is the method usually employed. 

 The tests made with the machine at the Utah Station were with 30 

 Western Yellow Pine, 2-year-old seedlings. They were planted 

 in oakbrush chapparal, on a north hillside at 7,500 feet elevation. 

 They are alongside an experimental plot planted by hand to the 

 same species at the same time. The planting was done about 

 May 15. The trees were examined in August, three months after 

 planting, and at that time 28 of the 30 trees planted were alive 

 and growing. They looked as thrifty as the hand-planted trees. 

 The main advantage of the machine is its speed. The 30 trees 

 were set by one workman in a half hour. This is about as rapid 

 as two men ordinarily plant on similar ground, and was much 

 faster than the planting on the experimental plot, to which it 

 was compared. 



While the above showing appears favorable, the work was on 

 entirely too small a scale to be conclusive. Several hundred plants 

 were set on different experimental plots with this device in the 

 fall of 1913. These plantings should begin to show results by 

 the end of the field season of 1914. 



The operation of this machine is quite simple, as is shown in 

 the accompanying diagrams. Fig. i shows the machinery ready 

 to receive the plant. The roots are stnmg in the groove at A, 

 made by the two blades at the base of the picture. The top of 

 the plant projects into the flare at B at the top of the blades. 



