48 BULLETIN 479, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
facilitates transplanting operations. After harrowing and grading, 
all large roots, rubbish, and stones should be picked up and carted 
away and the smaller trash raked off. The beds are then laid out, 
preferably in some rectangular system and with a great deal of 
regularity, but necessarily in accordance with what the water system 
demands. Ordinarily the corners of the beds are marked with 
stakes, and the beds are separated by paths from 1J to 2 feet wide 
at the sides and from 2 to 4 feet wide at the ends. The paths at 
the ends of the beds generally follow a branch of the water system. 
A convenient size of transplant bed where sprinkling is practiced 
is 6 feet wide and of any length up to 100 feet. Solid blocks may 
be planted, particularly when the rows run lengthwise of the beds. 
Where subirrigation is practiced the beds can not very well be more 
than 2 feet wide in order to allow for frequent ditches. After 
being prepared the beds, if not moist, should be sprinkled thor- 
oughly. This settles the soil, facilitates the opening up of the 
trenches which are to receive the seedlings, and insures a greater 
success in the transplanting operation. 
AGE, SIZE, AND SPACING OF TRANSPLANT STOCK. 
The principal feature which determines at what age stock should 
be transplanted is its size. It is slower to transplant very small or 
very large stock than intermediate sizes. Small stock can be 
handled only slowly and usually has to be left in the transplant 
beds 2 years before it becomes large enough for field planting, neces- 
sitating a transplant area extensive enough to accommodate 2 years' 
output of seedlings. Large stock necessitates the digging of deep 
trenches and wider spacing in the beds and should not be used for 
transplanting unless the resulting transplant stock is particularly 
well adapted for field planting. 
Coniferous seedlings averaging from 2 to 3 inches in height are 
the most desirable size for transplanting. If possible, such stock 
should be produced in 1 year. At the end of 1 year in the trans- 
plant bed it is usually well enough developed for field planting. 
Thus transplants suitable for field planting will be produced in 2 
years, and this seems to be the end toward which nursery practice 
should work. Older stock, however, will undoubtedly continue to be 
superior under some conditions. 
At Forest Service nurseries it has not yet been possible to produce 
in 1 year stock of all species large enough for transplanting. Some 
species are inherently of such slow initial growth that they will not 
reach a suitable size; and some nurseries are located where the 
growing season is so short that sufficient development is not reached 
in 1 year. The following table shows the age at which seedlings 
