2 22 REPORT OF THE FOREST, FISH AND GAME COMMISSION. 



3.2 marks; total, 27.4 marks per are, or about $6.75 per area of 33 feet square. 

 Removing the plants from the nursery and setting them out in a plantation 

 costs about $4.25 per 1,000 plants, and to grow the trees in the nursery, ready 

 for planting, about Si. 75 per 1,000. 



Tljoringia. 



At Eisenach, in the Thuringian Forest, there is a revier of about 11,000 acres 

 in which there are six permanent nurseries, each in the vicinity of the planting 

 grounds where the young stock will be needed. 



The soil is fertile, being composed largely of disintegrated gneiss and feldspar. 

 The nurseries are located on gentle slopes, where the plots can have a northern 

 or eastern exposure in order to avoid so far as possible any injury from frost, and 

 preferably on land from which a growth of beech has been removed. In many of 

 them sufficient space is maintained between the sides of the enclosure and the 

 forest so that the ground will not be shaded by tall trees. Protection from wind 

 is deemed unnecessary. 



In preparing the plot the trees are cut and the stumps taken out. The ground 

 is spaded to the depth of one foot, so that it may freeze and pulverize in the 

 winter. In the spring it is again dug over and beds are made, thirty-nine inches 

 wide, with narrow sidepaths one foot in width. 



Fertilizers are not applied for two or three years. Then humus and rich earth 

 are mixed with the soil immediately after the plants are removed. Seed is sown as 

 soon as the danger from frost is passed, about the last of April. The coating 

 of the seeds with red lead is deemed unnecessary here. The rows in the seed 

 beds are four and one half inches apart. A narrow slat of wood, pressed into 

 the earth with the foot, is used to mark the rows and make the depression in 

 which the seeds are placed. 



Spruce is sown twice as thickly as pine and about one fifth of an inch apart. 

 Larch is sown as thickly as spruce, because fifty per cent of the seeds do not 

 germinate. Spruce and larch seed is covered to a depth of a quarter of an inch 

 with humus or sand, or with a mixture of both, while pine is sprinkled with it 

 so lightly as to barely hide the grains from sight. 



Branches of pine are then laid on the beds; but spruce brush is not used, as 

 the dead needles, falling on the ground, are liable to become heated and thus 

 injure the seedlings. When the plants appear and are a month or so old, the 

 branches are placed upright for shade. These are taken off in a dry time to allow 

 the night dew to refresh the plants, and are removed entirely when the seedlings 

 are strong: enough to do without shade. 



