FOREST, FISH AXD GAME COMMISSIONER. 41 



it must be dried completely. The wheat is scattered broadcast; and it 

 is claimed that one kernel will destroy a mouse. The meal, however, is 

 said to be the most effective. It should be used while damp, and placed in 

 smali quantities — one-half teaspoonful in a place — at frequent intervals 

 in the runways of the mice. At Canoe Point, a light snow having fallen the 

 runways were easily discovered. 



These formulas have been used with good success in the large nurseries 

 of R. Douglas' Sons, at Waukegan, 111., where at one time a loss of $5,000 

 in white pine seedlings was caused by the depredations of rodents before 

 their presence was discovered. 



Another tract was sown with white pine by the seed-spot method. The 

 land selected for this purpose is in Essex county, near the highway running 

 from Lower Saranac Lake to Lake Placid. The ground on this site was so 

 uneven, rough, and overgrown with scrubby brush that the planting of 

 seedlings at regular intervals was not practicable. The seed-spot method 

 consists in breaking up the ground in small circular spots, about two feet 

 wide, and at intervals of eight feet each way, or as near that as the obstacles 

 will permit. A few seeds, ten or twelve, are scattered on the freshly turned 

 ground and lightly covered with earth. When the seedlings thus propa- 

 gated are two years old they are taken up, with the exception of one which 

 is allowed to remain; the others, so far as needed, are set out immediately 

 in the intervening spaces close at hand, forming thereby a plantation with 

 intervals of four feet each way between the plants. The seed-spot method, 

 owing to its smaller expense, is used also on smooth, level ground, in which 

 case the patches are made at the smaller intervals on the start, thus saving 

 any subsequent transplanting into the spaces. 



Another small tract near the Lake Placid road was sown with white 

 pine, scattered broadcast. This method is also preferable on ground where 

 seedlings cannot be set out with advantage, and furthermore, it is the 

 cheapest way to reforest denuded lands. But it has its disadvantages as 

 well; the seeds are often eaten by birds or rodents; and, under the most 

 favorable circumstances, the germination is very apt to be uneven, the 

 seedlings coming up thickly in some places, and scarcely at all in others. 



Still, the broadcast sowing of native spruce, in 1902, under the pcplar 

 groves near Aiden Lair, in Essex county, was successful in every respect. 



