122 ARTIFICIAL REFORESTATION 



NURSERIES 



Location of Nurseries. — Judging from visits to a number of nurseries 

 (1) near areas under natural regeneration and (2) at regular forestation 

 projects, France has not much to teach us in the minutiae of modern 

 nursery practice. What there is to learn is chiefly along the lines of 

 policy. For example, French foresters have demonstrated that in the 

 forestation projects in the mountains it is important to have small local 

 nurseries near the area to be forested, while the tendency in the United 

 States has been to maintain large central nurseries from which stock 

 can be shipped. On the National Forests in the United States, according 

 to Greeley: 



"The policy has been pretty generally adopted of maintaining large nurseries rather 

 than small ones, notwithstanding the shipping cost and the danger of the stock drying 

 out in transit. A few years ago a large number of so-called ranger nurseries were es- 

 tablished on almost every Forest, but this proved expensive and unsatisfactory. Many 

 of the rangers wasted time .on their nursery work and it seriously interfered with their 

 regular executive duties." 



At Barcelonnette, in the Basses-Alpes, they have tried three kinds of 

 nurseries: (1) Permanent or central nurseries, (2) so-called "flying" 

 nurseries, and (3) fixed local nurseries. 



Permanent or central nurseries are now rare. Small temporary or 

 "flying" nurseries in or near the area to be sown are extremely popular. 

 After they have produced once or twice and the nearby planting is 

 completed they are abandoned. The small fixed local nurseries, often 

 two or three in each working group, are placed conveniently near plant- 

 ing sites where for a number of years material will be required. 



Departing somewhat from this practice. Dinner, an eminent author- 

 ity on forestation, had very few temporary nurseries in the Maritime 

 Alps because he believed in thorough irrigation, and it was often diffi- 

 cult to secure a certain water supply near the planting site. Dinner 

 used 1 to 3 year old untransplanted stock and developed a formula to 

 govern the size of his nurseries. For 100 acres of planting site his nursery 



, ^ planting site area 100 -^t ■ ■< ^\ 4. u.\,- i j 



covered 1 acre or ' = -r— He said that this worked 



nursery area 1 



out with remarkable accuracy, and cautioned against establishing nurs- 

 eries at too high an altitude (where the climate is severe) because of 

 the increased cost of working. 



The following general principles have been developed in France 

 to govern the establishment of nurseries: 



cultural value. Other commodities, such as lumber, wool, or cotton are sold on the 

 basis of grade or quality. If our export of tree seeds is to grow a definite scheme of 

 seed control will be essential in order to protect foreign purchasers against fraud. 



