116 ARTIFICIAL REFORESTATION 



father of mountain planting, believes that planting is usually preferable 

 and that sowing should be done only in special cases, since the sowing, 

 while sometimes less costly than planting, is less certain and often in- 

 complete. Sowing is best, according to the French writers, on some 

 kinds of rocky soil where plantations are made with difficulty, where 

 seed is very cheap, and where the soil need not be previously prepared. 

 Otherwise it is usually more expensive. 



Planting was neglected for a long time in France, but Government 

 forestation has given it an impetus and formally established its desira- 

 bility under certain conditions. Planting makes possible the control 

 of species, mixtures, and spacing, and is generally considered better on 

 very rich soils where weeds abound, where there is damage from rodents 

 or squirrels, and in hot and dry regions where the young trees cannot 

 be protected but must resist the heat. For successful direct seeding, 

 it has been found necessary that (1) there be no dense cover that will 

 shut out the light, (2) the young plants should have a little protection 

 against the snow, (3) the soil should not be too exposed to heaving by 

 frost, but that it should have a moist surface, and (4) the slopes should 

 not be too steep. Otherwise the plants will be eroded or covered by 

 earth transported by flood water. There are other considerations. 

 Certain seeds take more than a year to germinate so that they remain 

 exposed for a long time to the different agencies of destruction. For 

 example, cembric pine seeds and some species of ash belong to this class. 

 Therefore, planting is to be preferred to sowing for these species. Not- 

 withstanding this, however, cembric pine is sometimes sown because of 

 the shortness of the favorable season at the high altitudes and the diffi- 

 culty of handling labor in these out-of-the-way places. Of course, 

 species which develop a long taproot at the start are better sown, as, 

 for example, the holm oak and the maritime pine. In the case of the 

 cypress it is better to plant because a certain number of seeds bear 

 plants having a pyramidal form. In Savoie and in the Basses-Alpes 

 sowing is often employed, in connection with planting, at high alti- 

 tudes and on stable ground for the cembric pine, the mountain pine, 

 and the larch; spruce is also sown in Savoie. In the Basses-Alpes, 

 Drome, and Vaucluse acorns and aleppo pine seed are sown; beech 

 nuts are also sown in the Basses-Alpes. Aleppo pine comes up well 

 from sowing operations in the Maritime Alpes. Scotch pine, Corsican 

 pine, and maritime pine are sown successfully in the northeastern part 

 of the Gard department. Elsewhere in this department sowing is re- 

 served for the summits and high altitudes where the wind is very strong. 

 The sowing of Scotch pine on heather has been employed in the Central 

 Plateau, in which region sowing and planting generally give about 

 equivalent results. In the Ardche the sowing of fir under the shelter 



