30 FRUITS OF EXPERIENCE IN SOWING AND PLANTING. 



SOWING AND PLANTING. 



We shall endeavor to present in the following pajjes, such practical 

 statement of methods and results of experience as appeared best calcu- 

 lated to afford subjects of thought and suggestions for experiment in 

 tree-planting. The results obtained in one country may be different 

 from those in another, but due allowance being made for circumstances, 

 the principles of vegetable growth are everywhere alike, and a careful 

 result of experience and observation acquires a permanent value. 



SHOULD WE sow OR PLANT? — EXPERIENCE OF EUROPEAN FOR- 

 ESTERS.^ 



Most foresters nowadays resort to planting in preference to sotcing in 

 beginning new forests. Is this a fashion and mere caprice, or is it the 

 fruit of experience and observation? This question we will proceed to 

 examine. Let us go back a hundred years or more. In 1756, the most 

 distinguished German forester of that period, Johann Gottlieb Beck- 

 man n, published a work entitled Uxperiments and Experiences upon the 

 necessity of soicing Forest Trees. In this work he specified the method 

 of soicing as alone capable of yielding good results, and as the proper 

 means for regenerating a ruined forest. " What shall be said of the 

 method of planting?" he asks; and to this the reply is short and decisive, 

 " It is not a good way, and as to resinous species, it is impracticable."^ 



Had foresters been satisfied with this positive declaration, there would 

 have been no question as to planting within the last hundred years. 

 But this has not happened, and they have been compelled to have re- 

 course to planting ottener than they wished, perhaps as they regarded 

 it, to complete and replace their sowing. They were led to observe that 

 the ancient process of planting left much to be desired, and that it was 

 susceptible of great improvement, while, on the other hand, they found 

 many soils to be covered in which sowing afforded but slender chance 

 of success. Little by little they gave more attention to the system of 

 planting, and had oftener recourse to this method, so that fifty years 

 after the publication of Beckmann's book, to wit, in 1805, Burgsdorf thus 

 expressed himself in his Treatise upon Forests, in the chapter upon 

 forest plantations: "Besides the kinds above mentioned that may be 

 planted on a large scale, it is a principle that others may be planted, but 

 only on a small scale ; in all cases depending upon success only where 

 the conditions are favorable." He seems to have understood these " cer- 

 tain rules," and " favorable conditions," and explained them ; but in this 

 it was a sad thing for sylviculture, that they tainted the precepts of the 

 master. 



It would require much time to do full justice to the system of planta- 

 tion, and in proof of this the elder Cotta some twenty.five years ago 

 remarked : "As the establishment of forest-growths on a large scale is 

 easier to do by sowing than by planting, &c., * * * we deem it convenient 

 to give preference to the former of these methods." An examination of 

 the modifications wrought both in theory and practice since these princi- 

 ples were laid down would lead us much too far, and, in our day, progress 

 is more rapid, and science travels further in twenty years than formerly 

 in a century. We will only remark, that the old rule which prescribed 

 that tee should plant only ichere there is no chance of success hy sowing, has 

 now in many countries, and especially in Saxony, given place to this, never 



'Translated from an article by the Barou Manteuffel, grand master of forests in 

 Saxony. Revue des Eaux et Forels, i, 147. 

 'Chapter iv, § 13. 



