FOREST NURSERIES AND NURSERY METHODS IN EUROPE. 22 1 



Square beds are very unusual in European nurseries, although in some of the 

 commercial nurseries in Germany large areas filled with transplants may be seen 

 in which there are no paths. 



A spade is used to take up the seedlings for transplanting. It is shoved 

 down between the rows, then pressed upwards, after which the plants are gently 

 and carefully removed by the workman with his fingers and placed in a box-like 

 frame made of slats. The seedlings are carried to the new bed, where they are 

 set out in drills four inches apart and the earth pressed firmly by hand around 

 the roots. The rows or drills in the transplant beds are made at intervals of five 

 inches. The infant trees are transplanted only once in the nursery and are left 

 there until they are five years old, as the climate is somewhat severe. Weeding is 

 necessary only twice a year, in the spring and fall. 



In the Erzgebirge a plot is generally used for a nursery only once or twice, 

 after which it is abandoned. If used a second time, bone meal and humus are 

 applied in the same quantities as at first. The humus is not only a fertilizer, 

 but it acts mechanically, making the soil looser where it is too firm and firmer 

 where it is too loose. 



Field plantations are made from the middle of May until the middle of June, 

 the spring being late in these reviers, as they are situated 2,800 feet or more 

 above sea level. The stumps are not removed from the ground which is to be 

 planted, but good earth is hauled there and distributed in small heaps, and in 

 quantities of about ten cubic meters per hectare (two and one half acres). 



Transplants are taken out of the nursery bed and heeled in. At the proper 

 time they are hauled in a wagon to the planting ground, and heeled in again as 

 deep as they stood in the nursery. They are taken up again as fast as needed, 

 placed in pails or baskets and carried to the men who do the planting. They are 

 planted 1.4 meters apart, and are set in the earth that is thrown up at the side 

 of the hole (locJiliiigelpflanziing), two or three handfuls of the good earth being 

 packed around the roots of each. By this method the plants receive nourishment 

 from the grass and sod beneath the hillock. 



The preparation of the ground for a seed plot costs about 22 marks per are, 

 the expense being made up as follows: Clearing and digging the ground, 10 marks; 

 bone meal, 1.20 marks; seed, 1.20 marks; making the beds and sowing the seed, 

 5 marks; covering with brush, 2 marks; lead oxide, 0.10 marks; spreading humus, 

 3.2 marks — or about $5.50 for a plot 33 feet square. These figures may seem 

 rather high, but they were furnished by the oberfdrster from his account book. 



Transplanting costs: Digging over the ground in autumn, io marks; bone 

 meal, 1.2 marks; making beds, 3 marks; transplanting, 10 marks, and humus, 



