80 FOEBST PLANTING. 



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

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

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

 This point will be mentioned again further on ; here we 

 only remark 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 wood-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, Quercus Ilex or sempervirens, are 

 only propagated by placing the acorns into the holes 

 where the trees are to remain, 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 following 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 haiTowing 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. Pour bushels of seed will be required for 

 this operation. 



3. Mostly the lands to be seeded down with nut-bear- 

 ing forest trees, especially when the ground consists of 

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



* Under favorable circmnetances acorns will sprout and thrive even if 

 very little or no pains at all is taken for their gi-owth. Mr. Wm. Kck- 

 hardt, of New STork, who owns about 34,000 acres of burnt-over wood- 

 lands near Schroon Lake, in the Adirondacks, some years ago, in March, 

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

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

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

 inches. 



