48 FORESTRY WORK 



using the dutch hoe, the user, who works backwards, 

 must be careful to avoid treading on the young seedlings. 

 There is no danger of this when the lines run across the 

 bed. 



Lifting Seedlings. 



An ordinary digging fork or a one-handed garden spud 

 may be used for loosening the plants, the tool being 

 inserted to full depth 3 or 4 inches away from the lines, 

 and then levered gently back until the plants are lifted 

 above the surface of the bed. They should be kept in 

 this position until all the best and strongest plants are 

 sorted out from the rest, as the earth falls away from the 

 roots and the plants are extracted more easily than when 

 the soil is allowed to fall back into place. 



Small and weakly plants, or " culls," should never be 

 planted out in lines, as the majority of them will be from 

 seed of weak germinative power, and the remainder will 

 be those that have been suppressed by the stronger ones, 

 and will never make good plants. 



Twenty-five per cent, of strong plants is a fairly good 

 average for Scots Pine or Larch, while with such plants as 

 Spruce and Silver Fir, which even in the seedling stage 

 are not so easily suppressed, 40 per cent, to 50 per cent, 

 is often obtained. 



The seedlings should be lifted at the same time as the 

 transplanting work is being done and not before, only 

 enough plants being at one time " sheued " or heeled in 

 to serve for two or three lines in advance of the planters. 

 They should be assorted into different sizes, so that those 



