88 FIRST BOOK OF FORESTRY 



be set out in the woods when one year old ; and even 

 beech and pine do well if set out at this age. Pine plants 

 do better if set out when two years old, and spruce and 

 balsam in their third year. When it is desirable to have 

 stout and hardy plants, as in planting on poor soil or in 

 places exposed to wind and sun, it is best to take the 

 plants from the seed bed when one, or even better, when 

 two, years old and set them in another bed in the garden, 

 giving them more space. This transplanting makes stout, 

 bushy, long-rooted plants, and is much used in raising 

 spruce, balsam, and oak. Generally it costs as much to 

 transplant a thousand plants as it costs to raise them, in 

 the seed bed to the second year. 



Where the trees are set out on forest soil with stumps 

 and small brush and rotten logs and other rubbish in the 

 way, they are placed wherever there is good space, but 

 preferably not closer than five feet apart. The planting 

 is best done by two men, one digging the holes with a 

 mattock, the other setting out the trees. 



The plant should not be set deeper than it stood in the 

 seed bed ; the soil must be filled in neatly and firmly 

 about the roots, so that the plant cannot readily be lifted 

 out by the top after planting. In this way two men can 

 plant eight to twelve hundred small plants per day. By 

 using the spadelike iron shown in Fig. 31,1?, where the hole 

 is made by one thrust, the plant held in by a boy, and 

 the hole closed by a second thrust, the two men can plant 



