nature's ^'UKSEIIY ASSISTED BY MAN 61 



climate. IMuch will depend upon the season, a wet season 

 being more favorable for transplanting trees than a dry one. 

 The continued and frequent rains of last season (spring 

 of 1904) gave ideal conditions for setting out young trees, 

 and even those set the last of May came through success- 

 fully. The great danger to these young trees comes during 

 the first year after transplanting and an extremely dry sea- 

 son is their most dangerous pitfall. Of course, the nature 

 of the soil in which they are planted is an important factor. 

 Where the soil is liable to be affected by drouth it will often 

 pay to do some watering the first year. This is true not 

 only of native seedlings but of the nursery-grown stock as 

 well. 



How to Favor the Production of Natural Pine Seedlings for 

 Future Use. (Nature's Nursery Assisted by Man.) 



In the spring of 1902, following a heavy seeding year, 

 quantities of seedlings sprang up throughout the college 

 forest and a small area, well adapted for the purpose, was 

 set aside for carrying on an experiment in thinning for im- 

 proved forest growth and to see also if the self-sown seed- 

 lings could not be further developed for planting purposes. 

 The average size of trees cut w^as six to eight inches in 

 diameter, with an occasional larger one. The better trees 

 were allowed to remain and all others, including the larger 

 ones, w^ere cut. The accompanying photograph, where two 

 students are at work digging seedlings, shows this tract 

 after thinning was done. Before cutting, the trees to come 

 out were spotted, taking a chip off each so they were easily 

 distinguishable. The chopping was contracted for by the 

 thousand board measure for those that were sawed and by 

 the cord for the remainder. It was necessary to pay a little 

 more for this labor, but choppers were thus satisfied and 

 did the work well. It requires more painstaking on the 

 part of the choppers where they do not take everything 

 clean as they go, but with a little direction and planning 

 it costs but little more. 



