CHAPTER IX 



THE PROTECTION OF SEEDING AND PLANTING 



SITES 



SEEDING and planting should not be undertaken without certain 

 necessary precautions against external dangers. The site should 

 be protected from such dangers, or be capable of resisting them. 

 This is often overlooked in artificial regeneration in the United 

 States, and, as a result, there have been many unnecessary failures 

 in both direct seeding and planting. Special attention must be 

 given every site where artificial regeneration is undertaken that 

 the seed and young plants are not injured or destroyed by: 



a. Seed-eating animals. 



b. Plant-eating animals. 



c. Fire. 



1. PROTECTING THE SITE FROM SEED-EATING ANIMALS 



Much of the loss from direct seeding can be directly traced to 

 the destruction of the seed by rodents. Not infrequently from 

 25 to 75 per cent of the seed sown is destroyed within a week 

 after seeding. Dearborn, 1 in a series of experiments conducted in 

 the Black Hills, found from 30 to 70 per cent of the seed destroyed 

 by chipmunks and mice within 6 days aftef seeding. Exhaustive 

 trapping on a half acre containing 2000 seed spots secured 3 

 chipmunks and 11 white-footed mice, which in 3 days had taken 

 70 per cent of the seed. In one instance, a chipmunk was ob- 

 served to visit 38 seed spots in 4 minutes. 



Over many parts of the country, tree seed is the natural food of 

 rodents. Direct seeding is usually done in the spring when food 

 is scarce. No matter how well covered, the seed is readily found 

 and destroyed by squirrels, chipmunks, and other rodents. In 

 experiments conducted at the Coconino Experiment Station, seed 

 spots were sown with yellow pine seed and covered with portable 



1 Dearborn, N.: Seed-eating mammals in relation to reforestation. (U.S. 

 Bur. Biol. Sur., Cir. 78. 1911.) 



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