No. 4.] REPORT OF STATE FORESTER. 267 



plantations with the idea of making small plantings on their own 

 land, and the large number of inquiries shows that this work is 

 awakening great interest. 



This year 860 acres have been planted, and deeds for 500 acres 

 additional have been recorded which, from lack of sufficient ap- 

 propriations, we were unable to plant. There are also now offered 

 700 acres more. The amount of work possible is governed entirely 

 by the appropriation, and it would seem advisable for the State to 

 enlarge this work. 



Forest Nursery. 



It has been impossible up to the present time to raise sufficient 

 stock to take care of the planting done under the reforestation act, 

 the department being forced to purchase a large number of seed- 

 lings from outside nurserymen at a much higher price than if 

 raised on our own land. It has, therefore, been deemed advisable 

 to enlarge our nursery from time to time, and we are now in a 

 position to supply from our own nursery sufficient stock for our 

 planting work next spring. 



It being impossible to obtain land suitable for transplant work 

 adjoining our present site at Amherst, it was deemed advisable 

 to make this nursery the main one, raising seedlings and doing 

 as much transplant w^ork as the allotment of land w^ould allow; 

 to establish at Hopkinton a transplant nursery, and also to en- 

 large our nursery at Sandwich, where for the past two years we 

 have been raising Scotch and Austrian pine, black locust and such 

 varieties as are suitable for planting on Cape land. 



Under this system we shall be able to ship direct from the nearest 

 nursery to the planting site and in this way avoid much expense 

 and delay in transportation. 



The Amherst nursery has been in charge of our foreman, W. N. 

 Tavener, the past season and was very capably managed. The 

 exceedingly dry weather has not seemed to affect either last year's 

 seedling or the transplant beds. This year's seedlings were affected, 

 however, by the drought, though a fairly dense stand has been 

 obtained. This year's transplants have made a remarkably good 

 showing, and the work was much facilitated by the use of planting 

 boards designed by one of the men at the nursery, this board en- 

 abling a man to put in a much larger number of trees and leave 

 them firmer in the rows than when the old method was used. 



