MAKING MONEY OUT OF FORESTRY 69 
operation to a sizeable figure. At least five to ten 
pounds are necessary to sow each acre broadcast and 
with seed costing from seventy-five cents to one dollar 
and fifty cents a pound under the most favorable cir- 
cumstances the expense is not trivial. Another reason 
why Nature’s method is not always desirable is that it 
is decidedly uncertain. Birds, squirrels and field mice 
all eat most seeds with eagerness, and in many cases 
also, the tender rootlet finds it impossible to enter the 
soil’if it is at all compact. 
As the result of quite a few years’ experience, it has 
been found cheaper and more successful in the long 
run to plant healthy little seedlings or transplants six 
feet apart. This requires 1210 trees to plant an acre of 
open field. The plants ordinarily cost from three dollars 
a thousand for seedlings to about six dollars per thou- 
sand for transplants, and the total cost for planting 
material and labor ranges from seven to ten dollars 
per acre. 
Growing the Little Trees——The raising of the little 
trees for setting out in artificial forests is a very inter- 
esting business and one that is receiving more and more 
attention in this country. Wild seedlings have been tried 
both in Europe and in the United States, but owing to 
the fact that they generally start their life in rather 
compact soil their root systems are far smaller than those 
raised in well worked and highly fertilized seed beds. 
Small root systems mean poor resistance to drought or 
insufficient food supply; hence artificially raised seed- 
lings have proven far superior. 
For raising these seedlings a level fertile field, one 
that has been tilled and well fertilized for years, is de- 
sirable. An old garden would be ideal, but it is apt 
to contain spores of the ‘‘damping-off fungus,’’ a disease 
