FOREST PLANTING IN THE INTERMOUNTAIN REGION. 45 



QUALITY OF PLANTING STOCK. 



The use of poor planting stock or too young trees has been given 

 as the cause of a number of failures. This has been true particularly 

 with Douglas fir. As stated above, this species is very susceptible 

 to snow-molding fungi, especially when the tree is bent down into 

 close contact with the litter. Hence, small and inferior stock is 

 under a considerable handicap in this regard. The deficiencies of 

 small stock have been so obvious that in recent years its use has been 

 definitely abandoned and failures on this account practically elimi- 

 nated. 



GRAZING. 



Grazing has been the cause of considerable loss in many plantations- 

 As with rodents, however, grazing is rarely the immediate cause of 

 death, at least on good sites. The trees are injured by the tram- 

 pling of livestock and by browsing, but if given a chance will recover. 

 One of the worst features of this form of injury is that it recurs year 

 after year. A plantation that is placed in a location where heavy 

 grazing occurs will in all probability be injured annually, for live- 

 stock have rather fixed habits in grazing particular areas. Most of 

 of the damage is done by cattle, because the extreme danger of sheep 

 grazing has been so well recognized that plantations have not been 

 made on sheep range. However, an experimental plantation on an 

 Engelmann spruce burn heavily grazed by sheep, where the trees have 

 been placed under the protection of down timber, has proved very 

 successful. In general, it may be said that plantations should be 

 closed to grazing, or otherwise protected, until the possibility of 

 injury is passed. 



These are the chief causes of failure of plantations. A few failures 

 have been due to fires, excessive erosion, water-logged soils, and late 

 spring frosts (especially in the case of Douglas fir) . These are infre- 

 quent, however, and should be unimportant if sites are chosen with 

 sufficient care. 



PLANTING COSTS. 



The average cost of planting per acre during 1913 to 1920, when 

 most of the extensive planting was done in this region, was $18.13. 

 Costs were lowest during the first year of that period, being approxi- 

 mately $12 per acre. The highest cost of $34.83 was reached in 

 1917. The average cost of planting per acre for the five years 

 1916-1920 was $28.55. 



FUTURE OF ARTIFICIAL FORESTATION IN INTERMOUNTAIN REGION. 



The future development of planting in the intermountain region 

 is, in the last analysis, dependent upon general public policy. That 

 much of the land within the national forests of the intermountain 

 region would be serving its highest use if producing timber is incon- 

 trovertible. On the other hand, even in the forest-planting work of 

 the Federal Government, the value of such an activity as reforestation 

 can not be considered entirely apart from the cost. 



At the present time, there are in other regions great areas in need 

 of reforestation where the cost of planting is low, survival is good, 

 and growth is rapid. Under such conditions, planting is a paying 



