198 THE SILVER FIR: 
protects the beds both from the ravages’ of birds and the 
influence of frost, is to cover the beds immediately after they 
are sown with straight-drawn straw, which forms a complete 
protection, and is easily regulated in closeness or openness to 
suit the health of the young plants. In situations where 
such a covering is apt to be disturbed by the wind, a straw 
rope should be stretched along the centre of the bed, across 
the covering, and fixed by pegs to the ground. Some seasons, 
however, and particularly when the plants are late in rising 
through the surface, they are much less subject to injury 
during the first year than in the succeeding years of their 
nursery treatment. In the month of May, and in early. 
seasons in the end of April, the slightest touch of frost -de- 
stroys the newly expanded foliage and young growth, 
when its influence is hardly perceptible on any other tree; 
therefore twigs of evergreens or some other slight covering 
is often required to preserve the top shoots of the young 
plants. 
When the second year’s growths are matured, the plants 
should be transplanted into lines. But in the case of being 
frost-bitten, the usual method is to allow them to remain the 
third year in the seed-bed, that they may form tops, which 
they do more readily before than after being disturbed. In 
transplanting into lines, a moderately sheltered and shaded 
situation should be preferred, such being more likely to pro- 
duce healthy and well-topped plants of silver fir than an open 
sunny exposure. The lines should be a foot apart, and the 
plants a few inches asunder. After remaining in the lines 
two summers they should be carefully lifted, and either 
removed to the forest or replanted into lines to become a 
larger size before being finally planted out. So slow is the 
early growth of this tree, that plants thus treated, at the age 
of six years, seldom exceed one foot in height; but their roots 
are always found to be large and bulky compared to the size 
of their tops, and the girth of the stems is uniformly great in 
proportion to the height of the plant. 
The soil most: suitable for producing silver fir timber is a 
