SYLVICULTURE. 



horse load. Fifty thousand seedlings without balls and well watered, 

 or eighty thousand seedlings slightly dampened, usually make a 

 wagon load. 



Paragraph XXIII. Common methods of planting seedlings in the open. 



A. Planting in furrows. 



The furrows should be made deeply with a subsoil plow. The 

 plants are distributed, at proper distance, in the furrows. Then 

 another furrow is at once given with a turning plow, throwing the 

 needful dirt over the plants, wliich are thereafter adjusted and 

 pressed into proper site, by hand. 



This is a quick method of planting, but is practical onlj^ on 

 prairies or on abandoned fields. It involves the danger of reckless 

 spreading of roots and of loose imbedding of the plant in loose soil. 

 The plants are also apt to be placed too deep and to be shaken 

 l)ad]y by wind. The method, however, yields good results in case of 



I. Stump planting (Oak, Locust, Catalpa). 



II. Planting many one-year-old seedlings (so that a large per- 

 centage might be lost without great injury). 



III. Plants not sensitive to deep planting (not for White Pine 

 and Spruce). Plants placed too deep form a second root systen'. 

 close to the surface and develop a bushy bole, useless in forestry, 

 pleasing in a garden. 



At Biltmore, the furrow method was used by Pinchot at the 

 Shiloh Crossing plantation. A modification of the furrow method 

 was used at the Rice farm in 1903, where deep furrows were drawn, 

 tlie plants inserted by hand, covered by hand and adjusted by hand. 

 A planting machine (Dr. Fernow's), resembling a tobacco planting 

 machine, is not used. 



B. Planting in holes. The holes are either holes dug with the 

 spade or clefts wedged into the soil. Most planters mulch the roots 

 in loamy water so as to increase their weight and so as to reduce 

 their spread before insertion into the hole. The root fibres suffer 

 from this mulching, however, being braided unnaturally. The root 

 tips should not be bent upward. The depth and width of the hole 

 should correspond with the actual size of the root. Several plants 

 might be placed in the same hole to save expense. Theoretically it 

 is best to place each plant in the center of its hole. At Biltmore, 

 however, planting in the lower edge of the hole is preferred because: 



I. No root is hemispherically developed. 



II. Planting at the edge is the best preventative against deep 

 planting, the planter holding tlie plant with the left hand at the 



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