11 



grown with scrubby brush that the planting of seedlings at regu- 

 lar intervals was not practicable. The seed-spot methods con- 

 sists in breaking up the ground in small circular spots, about 

 two feet wide, and at intervals of eight feet each way, or as 

 near that as the obstacles will permit. A few seeds, ten or twelve, 

 are scattered on the freshly turned ground and lightly covered 

 with earth. When the seedlings thus propagated are two years 

 old they are taken up, with the exception of one which is allowed 

 to remain; the others, so far as needed/ are set out immediately 

 in the intervening spaces close at hand, forming thereby a plan- 

 tation with intervals of four feet each way between the plants. 

 The seed-spot method, owing to its smaller expense, is used also 

 on smooth, level ground, in which case the patches are made 

 at the smaller intervals on the start, thus saving any subsequent 

 transplanting into the spaces. 



Another small tract near the Lake Placid road was sown with 

 white pine seed, scattered broadcast. This method is also prefer- 

 able on ground where seedlings cannot be set out with advan- 

 tage, and furthermore, it is the cheapest way to reforest denuded 

 lands. But it has its disadvantages as well; the seeds are often 

 eaten by birds or rodents; and, under the most favorable cir- 

 cumstances, the germination is very apt to be uneven, the sprouts 

 coming up thickly in some places, and scarcely at all in others. 



Still, the broadcast sowing of native spruce, in 1902, under the 

 poplar groves near Aiden Lair, in Essex county, was successful 

 in every respect. Forester Knechtel, who did this sowing, was 

 instructed to make a careful examination of this ground last 

 spring, and make a report on the result. He found the surface 

 under the young poplars trees twenty to twenty-five feet high 

 thickly covered with little spruce seedlings, and his report was 



