TREE PLANTING BY MACHINERY. 

 By W. R. Martin. 



For a long time, there has been a great demand for cheap 

 methods of afforestation and reforestation. So far as forest 

 planting is concerned, this effort has been manifested in broad- 

 cast sowing, sowing seeds in seed spots, the use of the corn 

 planter, and in the planting of seedlings. It must be acknowl- 

 edged that forestation by the use of seedling or transplant stock 

 is costly and will continue to be so. Forestry is concerned large- 

 ly with rough lands unsuited for agriculture in which the soil 

 is often shallow, stony, and filled with roots or otherwise dif- 

 ficult to handle. The use of machinery, therefore, must be con- 

 fined to a great extent to hand instruments in which the opera- 

 tor has the power of selection. 



Certain level areas such as the prairie region of the Mid- 

 dle West, the Southern Pine region, the Lake States, level por- 

 tions of California recommended for Eucalypts, and limited 

 areas in other regions might be suited to machine planting of 

 seedling or transplant stock. In some of these areas, notably 

 the prairie states and eucalypt lands plowing is recommended 

 before planting. In Germany it has been proved that surface 

 plowing followed by sub-surface plowing results in a superior 

 growth of many broad-leaved species over that which results 

 when only surface plowing is done.* When level ground is to 

 be planted and the planting season is short or labor is high 

 and of poor quality, the use of a planting machine may be ad- 

 visable for areas amounting to 20 acres or more. Over twenty 

 years ago a machine was devised by Thomas A. Stratton, a 

 farmer near Lincoln, Nebraska, for tree planting on his tim- 

 ber claim in the southwestern portion of the state. This ma- 

 chine was drawn by five horses with one man driving and one 

 man placing trees in a planting wheel which automatically spaced 

 the trees and released them in the furrow which was immediate- 

 ly filled by two rear wheels. This machine** set 15,275 ash seed- 

 lings in one day of nine hours and after further improvements 

 was estimated to have a capacity of 20,000 and 30,000 trees. 



*Mitteilungen uber die Leistungsfahigkeit des verbesserten Eckert- 

 schen Schal- und Untergrundflugs nach mehrjahrigen Erfahrungen im 

 grossern Kulturbetrieb "Allgemeine Forst- und Jagdzeitung," Mai, 1906, 

 pp. 145-149. 



**Described with drawings in the "Annual Report of the chief of 

 the Division of Forestry for 1888." 



