Silvicultural Practice. 107 



The credit of having radically changed these prac- 

 tices belongs to Pfeil, who, entirely reversing his 

 position, advocated for pine forest a system of clear- 

 ing followed by sowing, or by planting of wildlings 

 with a ball of earth. Then, suggesting that possibly 

 planting without this precaution could be attempted, 

 and pointing out the necessity of securing a satis- 

 factory root system, he recommended, about 1830, 

 the use of one-year-old seedlings grown in carefully 

 prepared seed beds. While for securing these, he 

 relied upon the simple preparation of the soil by 

 spading, Biermans added the use of a fertilizer in 

 the shape of the ashes of burned sod. The method 

 of growing pine seedlings and planting them when 

 one to three years old was further developed by 

 Butlar (1845), who introduced the practice of dense 

 sowing in the seed beds. He also invented an in- 

 genious planting iron or dibble, a half cone of iron, 

 which was thrown by the planter with great precision, 

 first to make a hole and then to close it. This was 

 improved by the addition of a long handle into the 

 superior, well-known and much used Wartenberg 

 planting dibble. At the same time (1840), Manteiiifel 

 devised the method known by his name of planting 

 in mounds, which is especially applicable on wet soils. 



It was not until 1840 that transplanting of year- 

 ling pines with naked roots became general. The 

 widespread application of this latter system resulted 

 in abandoning to a large extent mixed growth, and 

 led to the establishment of pure pine forests, intro- 

 ducing thereby most intensively all the dangers 

 incident to a clearing system and pure forest which 



