acre. A surer and much cheaper method is to plant the acorns in 

 shallow furrows or in holes dug with a spade or grub hoe. Three or 

 four acorns should be placed in each spot and covered not deeper than 

 1^ inches. The spacing of the seed spots should be 6 feet apart each 

 way; if furrows are used, these may be plowed 8 feet apart and the 

 acorns planted more closely in the furrows. 



If the proposed planting site is on tillable land a crop of corn may 

 be raised with the seedlings, thus utilizing the land more fully and 

 providing cultivation that will be beneficial to the young oaks. In 

 such planting, the ground should be prepared as for corn, marked 

 out in check rows, and acorns planted alternately with the corn. 



If nursery stock is to be planted instead of acorns, one-year-old 

 seedlings should be used. These should be planted in the spring and 

 should be spaced 6 feet apart each way. 



White oak does well in pure stands, whether grown from sprouts 

 or seed. On suitable soils, however, it may be planted in mixture 

 with a number of other species, such as red oak, shagbark hickory, 

 mockernut hickory, chestnut, yellow poplar, black walnut, white 

 elm, white ash, and white pine. 



CULTIVATION AND CARE. 



Young plantations must be carefully protected from fire and stock. 

 Cattle not only trample the seedlings but damage them by browsing. 

 White oak plantations should, if possible, be cultivated for the first 

 few years to prevent grass from crowding the seedlings and to lessen 

 the danger from mice and rabbits if these should become troublesome. 

 When crops are grown with the young oaks, cultivation may be con- 

 tinued for several years until the trees shade the ground ; or, if the oaks 

 have been planted sufficiently far apart, the intervening spaces may 

 be planted after two or three years with seedlings of some shade- 

 enduring species. These will form a lower story under the higher 

 oak canopy and insure good forest cover. 



In case of serious attacks by insects, specimens should be sent to the 

 Bureau of Entomology of the Department of Agriculture for identifi- 

 cation and advice as to methods of combating the insects. 



tCir. 106] 



o 



