THE NEW FORESTRY. 127 



CHAPTER X. 

 THE HOME NURSERY. 



Advantages. Stocking. 

 SECTION I. ADVANTAGES. 



ON all large estates where planting is carried on a nursery is 

 necessary for economical and other reasons, the most weighty 

 of which are that the trees can be prepared more cheaply in 

 the home nursery and transplanted from there to their final 

 quarters far more successfully than they can be from a distant 

 nursery. Without attaching blame to nurserymen, who are, 

 as a rule, anxious to serve their customers well, it is a fact, 

 that the percentage of failures in young plantations is much 

 greater with trees direct from a public nursery than it is when 

 the trees are moved from the home nursery to the woods. The 

 reason of this is that in the latter 'case the planting can be 

 begun at almost any day or hour when the weather is favour- 

 able, that the trees can be more carefully lifted, need not be 

 long out of the 'ground, and suffer but little check from a 

 change of soil or climate. Trees from a distant nursery, and 

 probably different soil, on the other hand, may be days out 

 of the ground and exposed before being delivered, and may 

 have to lie for weeks after that only " sheughed " in by the 

 heels should snow or frost come and suspend planting opera- 

 tions. Nor is the lifting of the trees always done so carefully 

 as at home, and from any of these causes failure may result. 

 Many planters are, however, obliged to buy from the nursery- 

 man, and when that is the case the purchaser should see. to the 

 careful lifting of the trees and their speedy delivery to his 

 own care. It is not the price of the trees, in the catalogue, 

 that affects the cost of planting so much as the losses sustained 

 after the trees are planted. A word must, however, be said 

 for the nurseryman here, because it is not by any means his 

 fault always that the trees fail. There is much competition in 



