126 TREE-PLANTING. 



close enough to protect the plants, and yet not too 

 close to admit the air, is a very good method of 

 affording them protection. The seed-beds also are a 

 great attraction to birds until May, when the plants 

 appear. A covering of straight drawn straw is some- 

 times spread over the beds for the double purpose ol 

 keeping off the birds and frost immediately after they 

 are sown. This furnishes a complete protection, and 

 can be regulated with respect to openness or closeness, 

 so as to suit the exigences of the plant at any time. 

 The seed should be covered over with soil to the depth 

 of half an inch, and the same method of treatment is 

 followed as that described for the pine. 



The young plants are also extremely liable to injury 

 during their stay in the nursery, as the least frost 

 destroys the newly-expanded foliage and young growth 

 when the effects of the same frost cannot be seen on 

 other young trees. It is therefore found the best and 

 safest plan to furnish protection to the young tops by 

 supplying boughs of evergreens till the frosts are over. 



After the second year they are moved into nursery 

 lines, but should they have suffered from the frost they 

 had better be allowed to remain a third year in the 

 seed-bed, in order to give them the opportunity of 

 forming tops, which they will do more readily before 

 than after they have been disturbed. Choice should 

 be made of a sheltered situation when they are placed 

 out into nursery lines, a shaded position being better 

 adapted to produce strong young trees than even an 

 open sunny exposure. The lines should be a foot 

 asunder, and the plants placed at a distance of a few 

 inches from one another. 



After standing in the nursery lines for two summers 



