40 Planting in Seed-Beds and Nurseries. 



150. The young seedlings of trees generally require shading a 

 part of the time, and this is especially true of the conifers. This 

 may be done by placing screens made of lath, with spaces between 

 as wide as the pieces, and supported a few inches above the surface ; 

 or a kind of arbor may be made of poles, over the beds, high enough 

 for a man to stand upright under them, and loosely covered with 

 brush. 



151. The object of these screens is to afford the same kind of 

 shelter that the young plants receive under the parent trees in the 

 forest, where the sunlight and shadow alternately passes over them, 

 at different hours of the day. 



152. In a dry time the seed-beds should be watered, and upon 

 first sowing they may need the protection of a light covering of 

 brush or grass to keep them from being disturbed by the birds. 



153. In watering a seed-bed and nursery rows, in a dry time, the 

 earth should be dampened to a considerable depth, and when begun 

 in dry weather, it must be continued till the rains come ; for, other- 

 wise, a crust will form on the surface, which prevents access of the 

 air to the roots. No other mode of watering is so good in a nursery 

 as that of irrigation, especially in preparing young trees for trans- 

 planting iu cities, and there we wish to secure an abundant mass of 

 fibrous roots. 



154. The seed-beds and rows should be kept free of weeds, the 

 former by hand-weeding and the latter by hoeing ; but in the part 

 occupied by larger trees it is of less importance, but still necessary. 



the sky, so that the air shall have free access; make one or more piles of 

 dead leaves, ferns, and other succulent vegetation gathered before their seeds 

 are ripe, and make other like piles of sods and the weeds pulled up in clean- 

 ing out the seed- rows and the alleys between them. These piles may be a 

 yard or a yard and a half high. In spring and fall they should be turned, 

 and in a dry time they should be watered. The sods will generally decay 

 the first year, but it may require three or four years to decompose the leaves. 

 A mixture of beech leaves with the leaves of conifers makes the best possi- 

 ble quality, and the process may be hastened by mixing in the foliage of the 

 ash, maple, elm, willow, poplar, alder, locust, etc., that decay more rapidly. 

 When the seed-beds have been prepared with a mixture of these soils, they 

 will afterwards need but a thin covering every year to maintain the soil in 

 the best state of fertility, and there will be no need of moving to a new 

 place on account of the exhaustion of the soil." Culture des Bois, oth cd., 

 p. 595. 



