52 BULLETIN 13, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
transplanted at once or their roots protected by a cover of fresh 
earth. Even a brief exposure of the roots to sun and air will kill 
the plants. A transplant bed 4 by 40 feet in size will hold about 
2,000 transplants, arranged in transverse rows 6 inches apart with 
the plants 2 inches apart in the row. With reasonable care in trans- 
planting, each bed should furnish 1,500 young trees. If the trans- 
plants are to be kept 2 years in the beds, the space between the plants 
in the rows should be doubled, thus reducing the capacity of the bed 
to 1,000, with probably 750 seedlings available for planting. The 
soil in the transplant bed need not be as rich as that in the seedling 
beds. Unless the transplant beds are well drained, however, they 
should be raised about 4 inches above the paths, with not too steeply 
sloping edges. The seedlings should be carried to the transplant bed 
in a wheelbarrow, basket, or broad, flat frame, with their roots lightly 
covered with loose, fresh earth. The transplant beds themselves 
should be well watered before the plants are placed in them. To 
save time and insure regular spacing of the plants a transplant board 
is useful. One employed with success by C. R. Pettis, State Forester 
of New York, is described as follows : * 
This board should be 4 feet 3 inches long and 5| inches wide, with notches cut 
on both edges of the top side, either 2 or 4 inches apart, according to the required 
distance between plants in the row, but the first notch should be 3 inches from one 
end and the notches exactly opposite on both sides of the board. The board is held 
in place by two sharpened pins set in the board and projecting from the under side. 
The planting board is laid crosswise of the bed so that the first row of trees will be 
set on the line marking the end of the bed, and one end of the board will be against 
the string that marks the side of the bed. After this first row is planted the board 
is moved back, or toward the planters, and the far side of the board placed against 
the row of seedlings already planted and one end against the string as before. One 
plant is set at each notch and the work proceeds in this manner until the bed is filled. 
If care is taken to keep the end of the board even with the string along the side of the 
bed the plants in each bed will be in straight rows both ways. It costs no more to 
have this uniform arrangement and is an advantage in every way, especially since it 
aids cultivation and gives each tree equal advantage. 
Two men to a transplant board, one at each end, can work to best advantage, and 
doing the work thoroughly should set out 500 plants per hour. A long, narrow trowel 
is the best tool to use, and care should be taken to make the holes sufficiently deep for 
the root system. Care must also be taken to put the roots into the hole in proper posi- 
tion and to see that the plants are set in the ground at the same depth that they were 
in the seed bed. The earth should be thoroughly packed around the roots. The 
foreman can easily see if the laborer has planted the seedlings at the proper depth, 
and by pulling can find out whether they are set firmly and are tight in the ground. 
It requires constant supervision to see that the soil around the roots has been packed 
properly. As soon as the planting is completed the bed should be leveled and the 
nursery cleaned up. 
1 See Forest Service Bulletin 76, "How to Grow and Piant Conifers in the Northeastern States." Sim- 
ilar planting boards are described and illustrated in the following articles: "New Tools for Transplanting 
Conifers," by William H. Mast, Forestry Quarterly, Vol. X, No. 1; and "The Yale Transplant Board," 
by J. W. Tourney, Forestry Quarterly, vol. IX, No. 4. 
