146 FOURTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



the upper part encloses a 5,000 gallon water tank. A two-inch main 

 runs from the tank along one side of the nursery. From this main, 

 side lines extend down each path at the ends of the beds with hydrants 

 placed at intervals for watering with a hose. The entire system js 

 laid to grade, and the water is drawn off in the fall by removing three 

 plugs. The entire system cost $579.50, and the water tower cost $194.96 

 additional. 



Our seed beds are uniformly twelve feet long and four feet wide, 

 and usually produce 10,000 seedlings per bed. A box around each bed 

 is constructed by making a frame work of spruce four feet wide, twelve 

 feet long and nine inches high and covered with a wire screen having 

 a three-fourths-inch mesh. A cover is also built the size of the box and 

 covered with the same kind of netting. The lath shades are also the 

 same size. 



Our system of seed bed management has been adopted by the Yale 

 Forest School, University of Michigan Forest School, Vermont Agricultural 

 Experiment Station and the United States Forest Service. Our complete 

 system of reforesting work, including seed collecting, nursery practice and 

 field planting, has been described in full for the United States Forest Service, 

 and will soon be published in pamphlet form by them. Seed beds are 

 made as follows: The soil is cleaned of all sticks, stones, roots, etc. It is 

 then fertilized and the fertilizer thoroughly mixed with the upper four to six 

 inches of soil, the wire seed box placed and the form made. The bed should 

 be made with a convex surface, and about one and one-half inches higher in 

 the middle than at the edge. This gives greater light surface and the trees 

 form an even growth. The soil to a depth of at least a foot should be 

 thoroughly saturated with water and then the surface of the bed formed 

 into proper shape. Caution should be taken not to get the bed so wet 

 that it will crack when the moisture evaporates. The seeds are then sown 

 broadcast. A clean tool, like a hoe, should be used to press the seeds into 

 the soil even with the surface of the bed. About one-eighth of an inch of 

 dirt should then be sifted over the bed. The wire screen cover should be 

 placed on top and the lath rack on top of it. Then the spaces in the lath 

 racks rilled with loose lath and thick paper tacked around the sides of the 

 box to exclude the light and conserve the moisture. 



