54 BULLETIN 24, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
soil should be evenly sifted until the cotton is just hidden from view. 
The bed should then be thoroughly saturated with a hght spray of 
water. The surface moisture can be preserved by covering the bed as 
soon as sown with paper strips, which, however, should be removed 
as soon as the seedlings begin to appear. The seed beds should be 
watered from time to time as necessary. 
Still another method which has been reported as success 1s care- 
fully to mix the seeds, which have been allowed to open in paper 
bags, with moist soil, hen prevents their blowing away, and sow the 
mixture of soil and seeds evenly over the bed and cover very lghtly. 
Care must be exercised not to cover the seeds too deep—not over an 
eighth of an inch, or barely enough to hide them from view. 
Except when the branches of green catkins are spread over the bed, 
it is well to drench the soil thoroughly before sowing the seed. It is 
of great importance not to let the surface become dry before the seed- 
lings have developed fairly deep roots. 
The seed may be either broadcasted or sown in drills or rows. 
When the seed capsules are allowed to open on the bed, however, the 
latter method will be impracticable. Broadcasting is apt to result in 
overcrowding, and so in spindling weak stock. In broadcasting, 
therefore, the seed should be sown sparingly, only a very thin layer 
of cotton being spread over the surface of the bed. If the stand is 
too dense it should be thinned. Fifteen to 20 trees per square foot 
is a sufficiently dense stand at the end of the first growing season. If 
the seed is sown in drills the beds can be more easily weeded and 
cultivated. Broadcasting, on the other hand, permits fewer weeds 
to start. The trees in the rows have plenty of side room for develop- 
ment, and are therefore more stocky and vigorous. On heavy soils, 
where alternate freezing and thawing during the winter is likely to 
injure a good many of the seedlings by gradually lifting them from 
the ground, the rows of trees can be better protected than the broad- 
casted beds by spreading a thick covering of straw over the ground 
between the rows. Thinning may often be necessary even in drill- 
sown beds, for the seedlings should not stand closer than 2 inches in 
the row, which will allow 18 trees per square foot, with 4-inch inter- 
vals between the rows. 
By fall nursery-grown seedlings siontd reach a height of at least 2 
feet. They will be ready for taking up and planting early in the 
spring as soon as the frost is out of the ground, or, where fall plant- 
ing is practicable, as soon as growth ceases in the fall. 
TREATMENT OF SEEDLINGS BEFORE PLANTING. 
Methods of handling seedling stock preliminary to planting are 
the same for both nursery-grown and wHd-grown trees. Above all, 
the roots should not be allowed to dry out before planting. The 
