606 AMERICAN FORESTRY 



assistant, Mr. Howard, the hosts for the meeting. We went at once through 

 some excellent Scotch pine plantings four years old and also some white pine 

 and European larch, the average cost of planting of which was eight dollars per 

 acre. From Raybrook we drove on toward Lake Placid and took another very 

 instructive walk through more extensive plantings of Scotch pine made in 

 lOOo in which there is almost a perfect stand. The growth of this species 

 has been so satisfactory that one is convinced almost that the Scotch pine has 

 a future in the United States. The accompanying illustration shows a portion 

 of this plantation with the tent of the forest guard. 



After dinner at Lake Placid, we went back to Lake Clear Junction and 

 there visited what is probably the most extensive and oldest plantation of 

 Scotch pine in the United States. The view of the party together is taken 

 standing against this plantation. The planting was made in 1902, spacing six 

 by six feet, and many of the trees are now fifteen feet high. Mr. Pettis 

 explained that the Scotch pine does not do as well where duif covers the 

 sand; also that white pine had failed here as elsewhere in the immediate 

 region, because of the formation of a secondary root system, causing the entire 

 vitality of the tree to go into the formation of adventitious roots. Here a 

 considerable number of white pine had been removed and burned, because of 

 infection by blister rust. This plantation of Scotch pine with one or two planta- 

 tions of red pine and white pine, seen the next day at Paul Smith's, are among 

 the finest examples of reforestation in the United States and compare very 

 favorably indeed with reforestation of similar lands in either Germany or 

 France. 



Following the examination of plantations, several large nurseries at Lake 

 Clear Junction and at Saranac Inn were visited. One of the accompanying 

 illustrations shows the party in the nursery at Lake Clear Junction examining 

 this season's seed beds. In a number of beds of white pine, it was estimated 

 that there were nine thousand seedlings in a space four by twelve feet. Ants 

 were causing some injury in spruce beds, but where they were not working 

 the average stand in four by twelve feet space was estimated at fifteen thou- 

 sand. The average for spruce seedlings in beds of similar size in 1910 was 

 given as fourteen thousand. Damping-off had started in the red pine and as 

 sulphur seemed to cause baking of the soil, dry sand was used with very 

 satisfactory results. After seedlings were well started, six pounds of bone 

 meal were used to the beds of pine, but no bone meal was put on the spruce. 

 Here and there in the pine slight injury had been caused by irregular scattering 

 of the bone meal and by too much lying upon or about the seedlings. The soil 

 was a sandy loam and this spring a very heavy dressing of manure was given 

 previous to the working up of the beds. The treatment with manure and 

 subsequent use of bone meal has produced unusually strong seedlings, stocky 

 and of good color. In fact, the number of seedlings produced per square foot 

 exceeds, if anything, the number produced in the average forest nursery of 

 central and southern Germany. It is probable that a larger number of seed- 

 lings may be produced in limited situations where the ground has been worked 

 for a long period and is exceedingly rich, but there will be little reason for 

 increasing the production per square foot above that now obtained in these 

 nurseries in northern New York. It was stated that in 1910 the acre and 

 three-fourths at Lake Clear Junction produced six million seedlings. Fol- 

 lowing a visit to the seed beds a twelve-acre transplant nursery was looked 

 over in which there were standing one-fourth of a million seedlings to the 

 acre. It was estimated that the cost of the transplanted seedlings at the 

 end of the third year was two dollars to two dollars and fifty cents a thousand. 



The evening was given up to a business meeting at Saranac Lake in which 



