192 LEGISLATION ON TORRENTS. 



the nurseries (in landes or in potets), — the quantity of seed used per 

 hectare, — the means used for protection, — the expenses of the works. The 

 system of repeated transplanting may be discussed. As soon as the beds 

 produce plants fit to be used, it will be important to have kept, by the 

 official specially charged with the nursery, a register, in which shall be 

 inscribed the number of disposable plants, and the numbers taken away and 

 sent off ; and the conference is to consider the plan that should be adopted 

 in keeping this register, of which an extract shall be periodically addressed 

 to the Administration, that it may know the number of plants ready for use. 



" Opinions, &c., of the Agents, 



"At the conference at Clermont very circumstantial details were pre- 

 sented — taking, for example, the nursery of Arpajon, the creation of which 

 has been attended to with great care, and the state of which is very satis- 

 factory. It may not be uninteresting to reproduce details which answer 

 to the questions put by the Administration, which may serve as useful 

 indications of what may advantageously be done. 



"Before being sown the bed should be prepared. The preparation con- 

 sists, after having cleared and cleaned the ground, in mixing the natural 

 earth with heath mould for leaf trees, and in adding to the soil some kind 

 of manure. The ground is then carefully broken up. 



" Remarhs, &c., of the Administration. 



"If the ground be encumbered with weeds it may be well to raise on 

 it a crop of potatoes to sfeoure the destruction of the weeds before 

 appropriating it to the growth of forest seeds. And too much 

 digging, or displacement of the soil, should be avoided. 



" The ground may then be divided into beds, a mfetre, or 40 inches, in 

 breadth, raised above the level of the ground, and separated by footpaths ; 

 and the beds about 8 or 10 metres long must then be surrounded by sheltering 

 screens or fences of the Chinese arbor vitte. While these shelters are 

 growing to a convenient height, their place is supplied by artificial shelters, 

 either formed of straw, or of osier, or hazel lattice work placed nearly 

 vertically, or linen stretched over boards. The sowing is done in the 

 first 15 days of April, or later, if possible, in moist weather. It does not 

 seem necessary to cover the seeds with earth, it is enough to pass the roller 

 over the bed after scattering the seed, and it is covered with moss reduced 

 to small pieces and watered. The quantity of seed to be used per are is 

 12 kilogrammes for pines with small seeds ; 15 to 18 for larch trees, the 

 Norway fir, the black pine of Austria ; 26 to 30 for the fir; for the oak 1 

 hectolitre ; for the chesnut 6 double decalitres. The seeds gathered in the 

 country have given much better results than those obtained from purchased 

 seeds. The beds must usually be watered every day until the plants have 

 gained some strength. After the first year the plants can be used. They 

 are then, according to the expression used by the nursery-men, in the con- 

 dition oipourettes. They cost little, 1 to 2 francs the thousand, are easily 

 dug up, and are removed at little expense. But the chances of such young 

 plants taking root being necessarily limited, it is only prudent to use them 

 in moderate conditions of soil and altitude. 



" Remarhs, &c. 



"The lifting of pourettes in the way described is employed with 

 advantage in planting in tufts. The earth raised is divided into 

 clods containing each a certain number of plants, and these plants ai-e 

 conveyed in the clod to the place in which they are to be planted ; 



