6o transactions of royal scottish arboricultural society. 



The Selecting of Telegraph Poles in the 

 Forest of Enzie. 



In connection with the article on this subject which appears 

 in Vol. xxix. p. 141, we publish here a photograph of the actual 

 process of selection in the woods. (Plate VII., opposite p. 56.) 



The Collection of Forest Seed. 



The question of the collection of the seed of forest trees is 

 becoming important in this country, so that it is interesting to 

 note the steps taken by the Government of the U.S.A. to obtain 

 seed in the forests on the slopes of the Rocky Mountains and 

 Coast Ranges. The seed is required for the re-stocking of the 

 forest lands farther east which have been devastated in the 

 States, the quantity of seed handled by all the commercial 

 houses of the United States being quite inadequate for this 

 purpose. In The County Gentleman, Mr T. W. Venemann gives 

 some account of the methods adopted, and from his article we 

 extract the following ; — 



"To appreciate the importance of this seed-collecting industry 

 one needs but to visit any of the several seed-extracting plants 

 in the national forests. For example, at Idlewild, in the 

 Arapahoe National Forest of Colorado, half a day's journey 

 from Denver, is located one of the most completely equipped 

 plants in the country. Thousands of bushels of pine cones, 

 gathered by the settlers in that vicinity, are delivered there to 

 the United States Forest Service to make up the supply of 

 lodgepole pine seed used annually in re-foresting the burned and 

 denuded areas within the Colorado and Wyoming forests. 



" Beginning about the middle of September, or as soon as 

 heavy frosts set in, men, women and children are off to the 

 forests in search of pine cones. A good seed year makes their 

 task a comparatively easy one, because the squirrels cover the 

 ground with cones. Round every tree, in every hollow and 

 cranny, under every old log, the cones are piled. The squirrels, 

 but temporarily interrupted, soon retrieve their losses. 



" At the extracting plant the Government pays for cones at the 

 rate of forty to fifty cents a bushel. 



"Of the coniferous species common to the Rocky Mountain 



