54 BULLETIN 13, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
roots. The roots of the young plants should be carefully spread out 
and covered with fresh or moist earth, the ditch filled, and the soil 
packed by tramping and thoroughly soaked with water. When the 
planting is not to be done at once, the heeled-in stock should be 
shaded in some way, as by spreading boughs over it. The plants 
should be carried to their final destination in a basket or pail with 
their roots surrounded by a quantity of damp sphagnum moss or by 
pieces of wet burlap. The importance of keeping the roots moist 
and protected from the air can not be too strongly emphasized. 
Even a few minutes exposure will kill the plants, especially on hot, 
dry days. In the past it has been customary to transport the plants 
to the field in pails with their roots immersed in a puddle of clay 
or loam and water. While excellent results have been obtained 
by this means, it is now believed that puddling causes many of the 
fine rootlets to stick together and to interfere with each other, so 
that the death of many plants, especially in dry situations, can 
probably be traced to this practice. Fresh but not wet sphagnum 
moss is a convenient substitute and makes it possible to spread out 
the root fibers when the seedlings are planted. When possible, 
planting should be done on sultry or overcast days. 
In planting, the men work in pairs, one man digging holes and the 
other setting the trees. The mattock is usually preferred to the spade 
for this work. The holes should be large enough to give room for 
the roots without crowding, and, especially on fight soils, the plants 
should be placed slightly deeper than they were in the nursery. 
When making the hole, it is well to cut off and remove a thin slice 
of sod in order to avoid immediate competition of grass roots. The 
roots of the plants should be spread out and placed in as nearly a 
normal position as possible. This can be accomplished by lowering 
the plant until the base of the stem is close to the bottom of the hole 
and the roots are spread out horizontally. Fresh earth is then 
thrown in with the free hand. At the same time the plant is raised 
with the other hand until the base of the stem almost reaches the 
surface level. Instead of tramping the earth down solidly from 
above, it should be compressed from the sides by putting both hands 
simultaneously into the loose earth 2 or 3 inches on either side of the 
stem and compressing the closed fists strongly toward the plant. 
The empty spaces are then filled with earth, which is pressed firmly 
downward with the closed fists, care being used not to apply the 
pressure too near the central earth mass. Loose earth should then 
be thrown over the surface. 1 While this method is at first a little 
slow, it can be carried on with considerable speed after some practice. 
1 This method, devised and carried out with great success by the Belgian forester, Morris Kozesnik, is 
described and illustrated in the Proceedings of the Society of American Foresters, vol. IV, No. 2. 
