44 BULLETIN 299, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
PLANTING OF FAIL SPOTS AND DISENGAGEMENT CUTTINGS. 
A year or two after the seeding of a new crop (simultaneously with 
the removal of the remaining shelter stand under the shelterwood 
system, or during the first good season for planting which follows) 
it is very desirable to go over the stand and plant one or more vigorous 
young ash seedlings in every square rod which has no reproduction 
of ash or other desirable species. Some places may be covered with 
a thick growth of inferior species, in the middle of which a square 
yard or so is cut clean and an ash seedling planted. Other square 
rods may be fail spots for reproduction of any kind, and here four 
(approximately 8 by 8 feet) or more seedlings should be planted, but 
not necessarily all ash. 
Another important thing to be done at the time or within five 
years (the sooner the better) of the final cutting of the remaining 
mature stand is disengagement work. This consists in freeing the 
crowns of a certain number of well-distributed and vigorous ash seed- 
lings (and desirable seedlings of other species) from injurious crowding 
on the sides and from overhead suppression by lopping off the less 
desirable seedlings with a corn knife or brush axe. At least one well- 
freed, vigorous seedling should be left on every square rod, and 
preferably three or four seedlings of desirable species. One man 
should be able to cover one or two acres a day in this kind of work. 
REFORESTING BY ARTIFICIAL MEANS. 
Artificial reforestation of ash is expensive, and should be limited 
to cleared fields and pastures and to the choicer forest sites in the 
natural habitat of the particular species to be grown. 
There are three general classes of artificial reforesting advisable for 
ash: (1) Planting on cut-over forest areas (including fail-spot planting 
in naturally reproduced stands) ; (2) dibbling in or sowing of ash seed 
under cover of mature stands (with good soil moisture conditions) to 
be removed the following year, or sowing immediately after clean 
cutting of stands on moist, fertile, loamy sites free from undergrowth; 
(3) planting or sowing of cleared areas, including chiefly old fields 
and pastures. Underplanting of areas to be cut over later will 
seldom if ever be advisable. 
In regard to the question of planting versus sowing, the former is 
of much more general application and more certain of success; while 
the latter is much the cheaper, and under some conditions has good 
possibilities of success. 
PLANTING. 
Seedlings for planting should be nursery grown, as a rule, since 
they are cheaper and much more likely to survive than wild stock. 
Wild stock seedlings might be used locally to a very limited extent 
