74 FOREST PLANTING. 



when ripe, because their germinating power will be gone 

 after the exterior hull has become fully dry. 



The safest way, therefore, is always to use fresh seeds 

 collected from the parent tree at the time of their 

 maturity. 



It has been stated as a general rule that seeds of plants 

 when not collected in the locality, where they are to be 

 planted, nor in a similarly conditioned locality, shonld be 

 taken from a colder rather than a milder region. This rule 

 holds good also for forest trees, and for this reason it is 

 advisable that forest nurseries should be located in the 

 vicinity of those woods for whose renewal they are 

 destined. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

 SEEDING FOREST TREES. 



THE artificial regeneration of denuded wood-lands is 

 effected either by sowing the seed of forest trees, or by 

 planting seedlings. The production of seedlings is prac- 

 ticable only upon soil that is free from growing weeds or 

 grasses, and entirely clear, so that there need be no ap- 

 prehension that a grass cover will be formed during the 

 first two years. In such cases, if good seed can be pro- 

 cured at a moderate price, seeding large tracts of wood- 

 land will certainly be cheaper than planting, besides the 

 areas thus seeded will, by the process of thinning, furnish 

 material for fuel or other purposes sooner than those 

 that are set with plants ; still, taken all in all, seeding is 

 never as certain as planting, and as soil which is fit for 

 seeding (i. e. free from weeds and grasses) is also suitable 

 for the planting of two-year-old plants, and as such mode, 

 by proper manipulation, requires little, if any, more ex- 

 pense than seeding, we would not recommend the latter 



