48 BULLETIN 475, TJ. S. DEPAETMEXT OF AGEICULTURE. 
Efficiency of Cbews. 
Careless work may be wholly responsible for failure in planting 
operations. Planting holes not dug deep enough, failure by the 
planters to distribute the roots well, bending the roots, insufficient 
packing of the soil or the packing of dry soil around the roots, undue 
exposure of the roots during planting, poor supervision — these and 
possibly other factors will contribute largely to failure. Speeding- 
up the operation in order to make a record is often directly responsi- 
ble for carelessness. Xo worse mistake can be made. A planting 
crew should not be allowed to loaf, but neither should it be urged to 
such efforts that the thoroughness of the work will suffer. Much loss 
in past planting has without question been due to this cause. Ex- 
cessive speed will result in the planting of a larger acreage, but not 
in its successful planting, and judgment concerning an operation 
must in the end be based upon its success. Further, where partial 
failure follows such work the expense of replanting the area plus the 
first expense will much more than equal the expense of more care- 
ful initial operations. Good, efficient crews doing careful and con- 
scientious work at a reasonably rapid rate will do much to make a 
planting successful and to keep the costs within reasonable limits. 
PEOTECTION. 
Plantations can easily be killed by fire and damaged by stock, 
insects, disease, and rodents. Fire danger is, of course, always pos- 
sible, and where it is very acute, reforestation should not be attempted 
unless adequate fire patrol can be afforded. Eeforestation, moreover, 
need not yet be carried on where roads or trails do not make the area 
easy of access by fire-fighting crews. 
FIEES. 
Fire guards are constructed to assist in protecting plantations. On 
the Xebraska National Forest (PL X) these consist of two strips 
of plowed ground each 12 furrows wide paralleling and separated 
from each other by a strip of unplowed ground about 2 rods wide. 
The cost of construction is about 50 cents per mile per furrow. These 
plowed strips are harrowed when necessary to keep down subse- 
quent growth and the inters'ening strip of unplowed ground is burned 
over. Under most conditions met in reforestation, fire-breaks around 
plantations will be unduly expensive and therefore impracticable. 
Ordinarily, fire is a risk which will have to be assumed in any 
plantation. 
