Some Developments in Reforestation on National Forests 109 



ging blade may be considerably longer than that of the common 

 mattock found on the market. 



With the better grade of stock now produced in the nurser- 

 ies and with adequate supervision of planting operations, the 

 advantage of such careful methods of planting as the cone 

 method is so slight as to be more than counterbalanced by the 

 greater speed of other methods. Planting in the middle of the 

 hole or against its side is now the most common practice. 



In extensive operations spacings which will give not more 

 than 800 trees per acre is the rule for all species. While from a 

 silvicultural standpoint different species should be given different 

 spacings and some sites should be planted more thickly than 

 others even with the same species, our knowledge of what con- 

 stitutes normal stands of the western species at different ages 

 is not sufficient to enable a determination of the best silvicul- 

 tural spacing for each species. 



Experience has demonstrated that the use of one year old 

 coniferous seedling stock in field planting is practically certain to 

 result in failure. Two year old seedlings or transplants will 

 probably predominate in the future, particularly with the western 

 yellow pine, and also with the Pacific Coast form of Douglas fir. 

 With the Rocky Mountain form of Douglas fir, with the western 

 white pine, and with Engelmann spruce, three year old seedlings or 

 transplants of the first, and three year old transplants of the latter 

 two appear to be the best stock. 



A number of exotic species have been given a trial on the 

 National Forests but largely with poor success, except with 

 maritime pine in Florida ; and, too, the extension of the altitudinal 

 ranges of species has not met with decided success. In the 

 future both planting operations and nursery production will 

 probably be concerned with only a few species largely native to 

 their respective regions. These will be jack, Norway, and eastern 

 white pine for the Lake States ; jack and western yellow pine for 

 the sandhill region of Nebraska ; western yellow pine, Douglas 

 fir, and Engelmann spruce for the Southern Rocky Mountains, 

 with western white pine in addition for the Northern Rockies ; 

 Douglas fir, western yellow pine, western white pine, and noble 

 fir for the northwest Pacific Coast region; and western yellow 

 pine, Jeffrey pine, Douglas fir, red fir, and white fir for Cali- 

 fornia. In all there are only eleven species with which the 

 greater proportion of artificial reforestation will be accomplished. 

 Other species will be given attention but only to a minor extent. 



