PLANTATIONS. 51 



PLANTATIONS. 



Yellow poplar can be easily and cheaply grown from plants raised in a 

 nursery or taken from the forest or edges of fields and pastures. Seeds 

 cost from 40 cents to $1.00 a pound. There are about 9,000 seeds to a 

 pound. Their vitality, however, is low, it being the exception when more 

 than 15 per cent, of the seed are sound. The seed can be planted either 

 in the fall or in the spring. If planting, however, is to be deferred until 

 spring, the seed should be stratified in moist sand immediately after col- 

 lection in the fall, and kept in this manner until they are to be planted in 

 the spring. If they are permitted to dry out and then planted the suc- 

 ceeding spring, not only do most of them lie over in the soil a year before 

 germinating, but there is a decline in germinability. Seed should be sown 

 in broad shallow rows 18 inches apart and covered not more than one- 

 half inch. Unless the seed bed is established in the forest, and receives 

 some shade from the surrounding trees, the seedlings should be given a 

 light shade with a screen of laths or brush during the first summer. If 

 the soil of the seed bed is fertile, the seedlings when a year old should 

 be at least one foot high. They will have long tap-roots which must be 

 cut off when out-planted. It is not desirable to transplant in the nursery. 

 While one-year-old plants will usually be used for permanent planting it 

 is possible to outplant the seedling when from three weeks to two months 

 old. The taproot at this age is small and need not be cut. On fertile sites 

 spacing in permanent planting should be six by six feet ; on poor sites 

 five by five feet. 



Plantations can be made on any sites which have a deep, porous _oil, 

 well provided with humus, and neither wet nor extremely dry. Heaviest 

 yields can be expected from sites on which large trees of yellow poplar 

 occurred in the original forest. It is possible, however, to grow poplar in 

 plantations on far drier sites than are naturally occupied by the trees, but 

 it is desirable in planting on such dry sites to mix the poplar with some 

 species like white pine, red oak, white oak, or chestnut, which have a 

 more dense canopy than poplar and will better protect the soil than this 

 species. On moist sites, poplar can be mixed with hard maple, white pine, 

 or basswood. At high elevations in the Cumberland Mountains and in the 

 mountains between North Carolina and Tennessee, poplar can be mixed 

 with white ash or black cherry. Such mixture, however, should be made 

 only on fertile soils, preferably on north slopes. Where there is a good 

 market for locust posts and the locust is not seriously attacked by the 

 borer, this species can be mixed with yellow poplar. The locust can be 

 removed for posts in thinnings, leaving the poplar for the permanent tree. 

 It is necessary to thin plantations of yellow poplar as the trees become 

 large and crowding takes place. This requirement should be considered 



