﻿52 BULLETIN" 13, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



transplanted at once or their roots protected by a cover of fresh 

 earth. Even a brief exposure of the roots to sun and air will kill 

 the plants. A transplant bed 4 by 40 feet in size will hold about 

 2,000 transplants, arranged in transverse rows 6 inches apart' with 

 the plants 2 inches apart in the row. With reasonable care in trans- 

 planting, each bed should furnish 1,500 young trees. If the trans- 

 plants are to be kept 2 years hi the beds, the space between the plants 

 in the rows should be doubled, thus reducing the capacity of the bed 

 to 1,000, with probably 750 seedlings available for planting. The 

 soil in the transplant bed need not be as rich as that in the seedling 

 beds. Unless the transplant beds are well drained, however, they 

 should be raised about 4 inches above the paths, with not too steeply 

 sloping edges. The seedlings should be carried to the transplant bed 

 in a wheelbarrow, basket, or broad, flat frame, with their roots lightly 

 covered with loose, fresh earth. The transplant beds themselves 

 should be well watered before the plants are placed in them. To 

 save time and insure regular spacing of the plants a transplant board 

 is useful. One employed with success by C. R. Pettis, State Forester 

 of New York, is described as follows : 1 



This board should be 4 feet 3 inches long and 5§ inches wide, with notches cut 

 on both edges of the top side, either 2 or 4 inches apart, according to the required 

 distance between plants in the row, but the first notch should be 3 inches from one 

 end and the notches exactly opposite on both sides of the board. The board is held 

 in place by two sharpened pins set in the board and projecting from the under side. 

 The planting board is laid crosswise of the bed so that the first row of trees will be 

 set on the line marking the end of the bed, and one end of the board will be against 

 the string that marks the side of the bed. After this first row is planted the board 

 is moved back, or toward the planters, and the far side of the board placed against 

 the row of seedlings already planted and one end against the string as before. One 

 plant is set at each notch and the work proceeds in this manner until the bed is filled. 

 If care is taken to keep the end of the board even with the string along the side of the 

 bed the plants in each bed will be in straight rows both ways. It costs no more to 

 have this uniform arrangement and is an advantage in every way, especially since it 

 aids cultivation and gives each tree equal advantage. 



Two men to a transplant board, one at each end, can work to best advantage, and 

 doing the work thoroughly should set out 500 plants per hour. A long, narrow trowel 

 is the best tool to use, and care should be taken to make the holes sufficiently deep for 

 the root system. Care must also be taken to put the roots into the hole in proper posi- 

 tion and to see that the plants are set in the ground at the same depth that they were 

 in the seed bed. The earth should be thoroughly packed around the roots. The 

 foreman can easily see if the laborer has planted the seedlings at the proper depth, 

 and by pulling can find out whether they are set firmly and are tight in the ground. 

 It requires constant supervision to see that the soil around the roots has been packed 

 properly. As soon as the planting is completed the bed should be leveled and the 

 nursery cleaned up. 



1 See Forest Service Bulletin 76, "How to Grow and Plant Conifers in the Northeastern States." Sim- 

 ilar planting boards are described and illustrated in the following articles: "New Tools for Transplanting 

 Conifers," by William II. Mast, Forestry Quarterly, Vol. X, No. 1; and "The Yale Transplant Board," 

 by J. W. Tourney, Forestry Quarterly, vol. IX, No. 4, 



