32 REPORT ON FOREST TREES. 



We shall now conclude our remarks with a few directions for pre- 

 paring the land and making the plantation, taking an oak plantation 

 for an example. The first step is to prepare the ground, by plough- 

 ing and harrowing it, as it should be done for corn or potatoes. A 

 light dressing of manure, ashes or lime, should be laid on, and 

 ploughed or harrowed into the soil. This being done, the land is 

 ready to receive the seed, which may be sown as soon as gathered 

 from the trees, or kept in dry sand until spring, if the field is likely 

 to be infested with mice or squirrels. To allow for this and failures 

 in seed, we recommend planting five or six acorns in a circular form, 

 just as one Avould plant corn or potatoes in hills, making the diame- 

 ter of the circle at least one foot — the spaces or hills being three or 

 four feet apart ; and the work is done, for the present, so far as the 

 future oaks are concerned. It seems to be generally conceded, 

 however, that oaks do better if sheltered by other small trees, set 

 out or sown before the acorns are planted. In England, the Scotch 

 fir, resembling our pitch pine, and the Scotch larch are used. We 

 do not attach quite so much importance to this auxiliary planting, 

 as seems to be given to it in England, though it is of advantage, 

 without doubt, as sheltering the young plants. We think the planter 

 will find great advantage in sowing broadcast the birch seed, at the 

 rate of two quarts to the acre, after ploughing and before harrow- 

 ing, as it is a quick grower, readily removed, and of value when it 

 becomes necessary to make severe thinnings — and we are satisfied 

 that this is sufficient. If the planter wishes to make a mixed plan- 

 tation of oaks, pines, birch, ash and maple, he can sow them all 

 broadcast and harrow them in, except the acorn, which, if it is to 

 remain as the principal crop, had better be planted as before di- 

 rected. We have thus given, in a cursory manner, the most proper 

 mode, in our opinion, to secure a profitable return to the forest 

 planter. We have adopted, out of many plans that planters follow, 

 the one which upon the whole seems best adapted to us, and it has 

 this advantage, if the assertion by some Avriters be true, that a trans- 

 planted tree makes less valuable timber, that the trees start up, 

 grow and mature without transplanting. It may be, however, that 

 a farmer cannot in any one or two seasons get his field ready for 

 planting, and at the same time, he is unwilling to lose the inter- 

 ven-ng time entirely. In such a case, he has only to sow his acorns 

 in a small bed of good soil in the autumn, and allow them to remain 



