80 FOREST PLANTING. 



them there. Commonly, however, they have to be trans- 

 plunted to the nursery, and raised to a height of from 

 five to six feet to prevent game from eating the tops. 

 This pcint will be mentioned agam further on ; here we 

 only i-emark that if (what we prefer) two-year plants 

 be used for the start m the nurseries, the seed-beds, during 

 the second year, should be carefully cleaned, and the soil 

 between the drills kept loosened. 



Seeding large tracts of ^cood-lands with acorns is often 

 done because the transplanting of oaks, on account of 

 their large tap-roots, is not always successful. Some 

 species, as for instance, Querciis Ilex ov semper vir ens, ave 

 only propagated by placing the acorns into the holes 

 where the trees arc to remani, because they form 

 already in the first year a tap-root three feet in length. 



In general, the seeding of large tracts with nuts or 

 acorns is done in the foUowiiig manner : 



1. On soil which is not too heavy throw broad- 

 cast the seeds (about 8 bushels to the acre) over the un- 

 plowed field,* either harrowing or plowing under the 

 kernels. On such fields sometimes furrows, three feet 

 distant, are opened (from three to four inches apart) in 

 which the acorns or nuts are laid, and covered three 

 inches deep with the loose soil taken from the top of the 

 furrow ridge. Four bushels of seed will be required for 

 this operation. 



3. ]\IoGtly the lands to be seeded down with nut-bsar- 

 ing forest trees, especially when the ground consists of 

 heavy loam, should be well plowed and harrowed, wherc- 



* Under favorable circumstances acorns will sprout and thrive even if 

 very little or no pains at all is taken for their growth. Mr. Wm. Pick- 

 hardt, of New York, who o\^ns about 24,000 acres of burnt-over wood- 

 lands near Schvoon Lake, in the Adiroiidacks, some years ago, in March, 

 sowed upon the snow three tons of white pine seed, and one hundred 

 bushels of acorns of the German oak. He succeeded so well that the 

 oak seedlings, one year after planting, measured from two to three 

 inches. 



