60 Germwny. 



seed tests; the seedbeds are to be made as for carrots, 

 dense sowings are to be thinned and the thinnings trans- 

 planted into nursery rows, the seedbeds to be covered 

 with moss and litter to protect them against heaving; 

 the question of cost he also discusses. The adapta- 

 tion of plant material to difEerent sites — conifers where 

 oaks are not suitable — ^was also understood (Bavarian 

 Forest Ordinance, 1683). 



As long as the old method of extracting the seed in 

 hot stoves or ovens prevailed, conifer sowings gave but 

 indifferent residts. 



In the pine forests of Prussia during the second half 

 of the 18th century the method of sowing the cones on 

 large waste and sand barrens where the sun would make 

 them release the seed was practised, and before Bre- 

 montier had written his celebrated memoire sur les 

 dunes, sanddunes had been recovered with pine planta- 

 tions in Germany in the manner which is still in vogue. 



The planting of conifers came into practice much later 

 and then it was mostly done with wildlings. Opinions 

 difEering as to the value of sowing or planting, it was 

 erroneously held until the 19th century that planting 

 was less successful and too costly in comparison with the 

 smaU. harvest yield, which necessitated cheapness of 

 operations. It was only towards the end of the 18th 

 century that planting of pine was resorted to, but merely 

 for repairing fail places in sowings and natural regener- 

 tion, and then with a ball of earth (1779), using a 

 hollow spade, — a costly method. The cost of a certain 

 plantation in 1751 is reported as less than $3.00 per 

 M., in 1770 as low as 70 cents per M. To cheapen the 

 operations the labor was exchanged for wood, pasture or 

 other materials or advantages. 



