ADMINISTRATION 71 



The planting of 2 or 3 year old seedlings or trans- 

 plants largely overcomes the adverse soil and moist- 

 ure factors which appear to have made direct seed- 

 ing unsuccessful in many localities. This method, 

 which is the general practice in European forestry, 

 must without doubt be employed to reforest a con r 

 siderable portion of the denuded lands. The 

 growing and planting of nursery stock is carried on 

 simultaneously with direct seeding. The object of 

 this is to ascertain the comparative results of the 

 two methods, the sites on which the greater success 

 will be obtained from each, and the proper relation 

 of the two methods in the future development of 

 reforestation work. 



Since reforestation work was begun on the Na- 

 tional Forests about 135,500 acres have been sowed 

 or planted. The larger part of this acreage 

 was reforested by direct seeding. Until only a few 

 years ago larger areas were direct seeded each year 

 than were planted to nursery stock, but at the pres- 

 ent time more planting is being done. During the 

 fiscal year 1916 about 7,600 acres were planted and 

 about 2,800 acres were seeded. The average cost 

 in that year of planting was about $10.00 per acre, 



