TREATMENT OF SEEDING AND PLANTING SITES 199 



amenable to soil preparation should be planted. Heyer 1 emphasizes 

 the particular need of thorough soil preparation on all but the 

 most favorable sites whenever regeneration by direct seeding is 

 undertaken and points out its advantages due to fewer failures in 

 the stand and better growth. 



Two centuries of forest culture in Europe have conclusively 

 demonstrated that successful artificial regeneration is chiefly a 

 matter of soil management. The surface soil should * be neither too 

 wet nor too dry, too loose nor too compact. It should be fresh 

 and free from excessive litter and herbage. 



The roughness of the surface, the compactness of the soil, and 

 the presence of roots, stones, and other obstructions that usually 

 characterize forest soils make special implements and tools often 

 desirable. This is clearly shown in the great variety of imple- 

 ments and tools that have been devised for the cultivation and 

 loosening of the soil in forest culture in Europe. Schlich 2 states 

 that a considerable number are of doubtful utility, which is fully 

 in accord with the experience of the author who has tested a 

 large number of tools and implements of European origin that 

 have been recommended as useful in the cultivation of forest soil. 

 The introduction of novel tools and implements can be recom- 

 mended only after their efficiency has been thoroughly tested and 

 it has been proved that their use results in a considerable saving of 

 labor or in better work. As a rule, the average laborer will do more 

 and better work with tools and implements with which he is 

 familiar than he will with imported ones, the use of which he has 

 first to learn. The changing of soil-working tools, therefore, for 

 each change in soil conditions is impractical and unnecessary. 

 In general, in the United States we should rely upon the ordinary 

 agricultural tools and implements of each particular locality, modi- 

 fied when necessary to resist the adverse conditions of forest 

 soils. 



In many cases, however, tools useful in agriculture cannot be 

 used in forest tillage. We have not yet developed tools in the 

 United States for the special purpose of working forest soil. At- 

 tention is called on the following page to a number of foreign 

 tools that have proved most useful in soil preparation for seeding 



1 Heyer, Carl: Der Waldbau oder die Forstproduktenzucht. 5. Aufl., I. Bd. 

 Leipzig, 1906. 



2 Schlich, Wm.: Manual of forestry, vol. II, p. 168. London, 1910. 



