2 24 REPORT OF THE FOREST, FISH AND GAME COMMISSION. 



plants are placed in the field at a cost of one pfennig each, including all incidental 

 expenses. They are planted at intervals of one meter, or 10,000 plants per hectare 

 — about 4,000 per acre. 



Most of the nurseries in the Thuringer Wald are small, each with an area of 

 less than one acre. But at Ruhla there is a permanent one of two and one half 

 hectares (six and one quarter acres) planted entirely with Norway spruce. In 

 fertilizing, four centners (four hundred and forty pounds) of Thomasmehl and two 

 centners of kainit are used for one morgen or quarter hectare. After the seeds 

 have germinated in the seed beds ammoniated superphosphate is strewn between 

 the rows. 



The seed is sown by hand, about the end of May, in drills along the beds so 

 that the plants can be protected with moss in the late autumn. The seed is sown 

 thickly. No screens are used. The seedlings stand in the seed beds until two 

 years old, when they are removed to other beds, where they remain two years 

 more. As a general rule, four-year-old transplants are used in making a plantation. 



Prussia. 



The forest at Friedrichsruh, near Hamburg, covers 18,750 acres, divided into 

 eight reviers. The eight nurseries necessary for the annual planting occupy, in all, 

 four hectares, or about ten acres of ground. One of the best of these is situated 

 about two miles from the railroad station at Friedrichsruh, in the Bismarck Forest, 

 a large tract of woodland presented to the German Chancellor by the government 

 in recognition of his services in the Franco-Prussian war. 



This nursery has an enclosure of 200 by 150 feet, is on level ground and is 

 surrounded on all sides by an old forest, mostly beech, which comes close to the 

 fence. 



The coniferous plants raised here are mostly rottanne, with a few beds of 

 Douglas spruce. About one fourth of the area is devoted to broad-leaf plants, 

 the greater part of which are pedunculate oak. There is no arrangement for 

 screening the seed beds to protect them from birds; but a stuffed hawk, perched 

 on a stake close by, seems to answer the same purpose to a satisfactory extent. 



At the Revier Holme, in the Hartz, temporary nurseries located in the center 

 of the planting ground are the rule. The soil, derived from granitic formations, 

 has a natural fertility that is sufficient for the propagation of plants; but if a plot 

 is used a second time, mineral fertilizers, of the kinds already described, are 

 applied, with some lime (kalk) also in a few instances. Its elevation is only forty- 

 five feet above the sea. In both seed beds and transplant beds the rows run 

 lengthwise. 



