184 ANNUAL REPORT 



If spring planting is preferred, begin as soon as the frost is out 

 deep enough and the ground in good working condition. One 

 year with another, the entire month of May can be devoted to 

 planting forest trees in Minnesota or Dakota. The advantages of 

 fall planting are chiefly in the fact that the ground becomes firmly 

 packed among the roots of the young tree to the exclusion of the 

 air, and that it is in better position to appropriate the moisture 

 resulting from the winter snows and early spring rains, getting 

 thereby such a "" send-off " as to enable the young tree to success- 

 fully go through a dry spell that would be very damaging, if not 

 fatal, to spring planting. Such dry spells do occasionally prevail 

 all over the Northwest about planting time, and hang on unmer- 

 cifully. On the other hand, an open winter with frequent or oc- 

 casional thawing and freezing, occasionally proves fatal to fall 

 planting, the action of frost heaving the fall-planted seedling or 

 cutting nearly or quite out of the ground. Where well rooted 

 young trees are used we overcome this trouble to a great extent by 

 deep planting. While spring planting escapes this danger, it is in 

 bad shape to withstand a protracted drowth, and right there is 

 where fall planting has the inside track. But should your spring 

 planting be followed up by occasional timely showers, the newly 

 planted trees grow right along with great vigor. The tree planter 

 must take his chances. I have for many years planted largely both 

 spring and fall, and my experience does not yet justify me in bring- 

 ing in a verdict either way. In fact I consider it one of the least 

 important of the many conundrums of forestry. 



THE Handling of young trees 



before planting is an important matter and deserves a passing 

 paragraph. You will not be greatly astonished to learn for a fact 

 that a very large percentage of all the forest trees planted on the 

 Northwestern prairies are practically dead before they are planted. 

 This is especially true of all the evergreens or conifers, and the 

 trouble is aggravated in this, that the inexperienced planter can't 

 always tell a dead tree from a live one, and keeps right on planting 

 stuff only fit for a brush heap. It would seem as if any one could 

 tell a dead cotton-wood seedling from a live one; and as more 

 cottonwoods are being planted than any other variety, I think it 

 best to say that millions of them are gathered every fall before the 

 terminal bud has formed — are packed with all their green foliage 

 in full vigor in tight boxes for shipment, and commence heating at 

 once, and on arrival at their destination are " too dead to skin " — 



