EEFOEESTATIOI^ ON THE NATIONAL FOEESTS. 
45 
a heavj^ or a light tool is used. The extra energy exerted with a 
heavier tool can well be expended in performing more work, and 
under most conditions met in planting it will be found that a tool of 
medium weight, about 4 or 4J pounds, will be preferable to a heavier 
one. Short-handled grub hoes, 2J to 3 pounds in weight, are now- 
being used successfully in some of the Idaho planting. 
OTHEK EQUIPMENT. 
A very serviceable basket for field planting has been devised at 
the Nebraska Forest. This is described as follows :^ 
The Besley planting basket is 12 inches wide, 20 inches long, and 8 inches 
deep and made of light, galvanized iron, having two handles, as a market 
basket, and four short legs, consisting of stove bolts 1 inch long soldered in the 
corners. The top is rolled over a No. 12 wire to give strength. For the inside 
of the basket several thin quilted pads are furnished. These are fastened on 
vertical wires at one end, and the trees are placed in layers between the 
moistened pads. This provides perfect protection for the lower layers while 
the upper layer is being used. 
A modification of this basket has been constructed at the Bessey 
Nursery. The basket is made collapsible by using canvas instead of 
galvanized iron. It is of about the same weight, but can be packed 
about more readily than the first-described type. 
Bags made of waterproof cloth and equipped with shoulder or belt 
straps have been designed in District 6 for carrying stock. The tops 
of the stock protrude from the bags where they can be grasped by the 
planter, while the roots are surrounded with wet burlap or moss. In 
District 1 the specifications for a similar bag are as follows : 
Fourteen inches long, 11 inches deep, with a pocket 8^ inches long and as 
deep as the bag, sewed on the outside. Material of heaviest duck. Waterproof 
lining on inside of main pocket. Two rings sewed on ends of bag for inserting 
1-inch rope to tie around waist of planter to keep bag from swinging. Adjust- 
able shoulder straps sewed at one end of bag and fastened with snap at other 
end. 
One of these bags will hold about 1,000 2-0 or 600 1-2 western 
yelloAv pines. The plants are readily drawn from the small pocket 
sewed on the outside, which holds about 100 trees. The main pocket 
is used to carry the surplus. 
Common 2-gallon water pails, in which the roots are immersed in 
water or covered with damp moss, are also used. The chief objection 
to them is that on slopes they tip over very readily. 
The common wet burlap cover is not so good as the others men- 
tioned, both because it rapidly becomes dry and because in pulling 
out one seedling for planting the roots of others are very commonly 
pulled out also and exposed. 
1 In American Forestry, Vol. XVIII, No. 5. 
