28G FORESTRY INVESTIGATIONS U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



larch in twenty to thirty days. Shortly after the trees are up, or at any time during the first sum- 

 mer, a disease called "damping off" is liable to attack them. This is a fungous growth, and results 

 in the decay of the tiny seedlings at the ground. It is often very destructive. The only remedy 

 is to sow clean dry sand among the seedlings and withhold water for a few days. This is not 

 always effective, but it will usually check the disease. 



The shade for the seed bed is variously made. In the large nurseries it is usually a shed, 

 roofed and sided with laths, but this would be too expensive for a farm nursery. Useful shades arc 

 made by laying brush across supports or by bunches of rushes or swamp grass similarly placed, 

 but of course these are more difficult to keep in order. Where proper attention is paid to ventil- 

 ation, an inexpensive shade can be made by tacking cheap sheeting to a frame to rest upon 

 supports running along the side of the bed. 



It may be advisable sometimes to purchase one or two year old seedlings from reliable growers. 

 They should be planted, in shaded beds, about .'5 inches apart, in rows (i to 12 inches apart. It 

 will be necessary to keep them shaded one to three years, according to their rate of growth. The 

 oftener the cone-bearing trees are transplanted before being set permanently the better, as by this 

 process the growth of fibrous roots close to the collar is encouraged. Especial care must be taken 

 in handling conifers to prevent their roots from drying in the least, as whenever the roots dry it 

 is almost impossible to make the trees live. The seedlings should be packed in damp moss at the 

 nursery, and as soon as received the roots should be puddled in liquid mud and heeled in in a 

 shaded place. The heeling in should be carefully done, the fine soil pressing close upon the roots, 

 but not covering the tops. In a shaded place the trees may be left thus until the roots begin 

 growth. In planting it is best to carry the trees in a bucket, with just enough water to cover the 

 roots. They should be planted firmly and be well trampled, and a little loose soil dusted over the 

 trampled surface to prevent baking. No tree should be set much deeper than it stood before, and 

 this is specially important in transplanting conifers. 



Conifers are ready for setting in plantations when from two to six years old. Larches can 

 usually be set when two or three years old, the pines and cedars when from three to five years old, 

 and the spruces when from four to six years. 



How TO TEEAT THE WOOD LOT. 



In the northeastern States it is the custom to have connected with the farm a piece of virgin 

 woodland, commonly called the wood lot. Its object primarily is to supply the farmer with the 

 firewood, fence material, and such dimension timbers as he may need from time to time for repairs 

 on buildings, wagons, etc. 



As a rule, the wood lot occupies, as it ought to, the poorer part of the farm, the rocky or 

 stony, the dry or the wet portions, which are not well fitted for agricultural crops. As a rule, it 

 is treated as it ought not to be, if the intention is to have it serve its purpose continuously; it is 

 cut and culled without regard to its reproduction. 



As far as firewood supplies go, the careful farmer will first use the dead and dying Jrees, 

 broken limbs, and leavings, which is quite proper. The careless man avoids the extra labor which 

 such material requires, and takes whatever splits best, no matter whether the material could be 

 used for better purposes or not. 



When it comes to the cutting of other material, fence rails, posts, or dimension timber, the 

 general rule is to go into the lot and select the best trees of the best kind for the purpose. This 

 looks at first sight like the natural, most practical way of doing. It is the method which the 

 lumberman pursues when he "culls" the forest, and is, from his point of view perhaps, justifiable, 

 for he only desires to secure at once what is most profitable in the forest. But for the farmer 

 who proposes to use his wood lot continuously for supplies of this kind, it is a method detrimental 

 to his object, and in time it leaves him with a lot of poor, useless timber which encumbers the 

 ground and prevents the growth of a better crop. 



Our woods are mostly composed of many species of trees; they are mixed woods. Some of 

 the species are valuable for some special purposes, others are applicable to a variety of purposes, 

 and again others furnish but poor material for anything but firewood, and even for that use they 

 may not be of the best. 



