REFORESTATION IN MASSACHUSETTS. 21 



Time to plant. 



Planting should be undertaken as soon as the frost is out of 

 the ground in the spring, the month of April and first of May 

 being preferable, in order that the young roots may get started 

 before the dry season sets in. Spring planting is preferable to 

 fall planting, as the roots having started will not be as likely to 

 be heaved out by the frost; although under certain conditions 

 fall planting is sometimes resorted to, as in a case where a piece 

 of land is too wet to work in the spring, but becomes dry during 

 the summer and fall. 



Two men working in the above manner will set about an acre 

 per day, the expense of reforesting a tract, therefore, ranging 

 from $5 to $10 per acre, depending on the price of the trees used 

 and the cost of labor, white pine seedlings generally selling for 

 from $3 to $5 per 1,000, and labor ranging from $1.50 to $2 per 

 day. The above estimate is based on about 30 lots planted by 

 the State Forestry department, the lots ranging in size from 20 

 to 200 acres. It was generally found that the average cost is 

 much smaller on large lots than on small ones, the men becoming 

 used to the lay of the land, and thus being able to work with 

 greater speed. 



Protection of Plantation. 



After the lot has been planted, it needs practically no care 

 unless a large proportion die out, in which case the blanks should 

 be filled in with transplants. The lot should not be pastured, as 

 many of the young trees would be trampled down. It is also 

 well to put up posters prohibiting hunters and berry pickers, who 

 often through carelessness start fires capable of great damage. 



Fire lines (Fig. 19). 



Around large lots a fire line should be cut on the exposed side 

 of the plantation, to protect them from forest fires creeping in 

 from adjoining land. A strip 50 feet wide cleaned of brush 

 has been found very effective, the brush being piled and burned 

 when the snow is on the ground (Fig. 20). On the side nearest 

 the plantation (Fig. 20) a trench 6 feet wide should be grubbed 

 up or plowed up, and kept free from weeds and dead leaves. In 

 this way a fire working in from other land would be unable to 



