46 BULLETIN 149 7, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGEICLXTUBE 
The stock raised in small home nurseries has most of the ad- 
vantages of any other locally grown stock, except that it is likely 
to be more expensive. However, anyone who wants to do some 
planting on a small scale and has spare time for it will find the 
nursery work thoroughly interesting, even though it may not be 
wholly successful until experience has been gained. 
If any one company or individual is not in a position to operate 
a nursery on an economical scale, the same advantages may be 
obtained by the establishment of a joint nursery to supply the needs 
of a group of landowners in the same district. Similarly, with 
increasing recognition of forestry enterprises as appropriate countv 
and city activities, it may be well to consider the establishment of 
communal forest nurseries to provide stock for planting on county 
or city forests and also for distribution at low cost to local owners 
of forest land in need of planting. 
Seed for any nursery should be collected from trees growing as 
near the nursery or planting site as possible. Stock from seed 
gathered in a region of different climatic conditions is likely to 
produce a less satisfactory crop of trees than that from local seeds. 
Even the difference between seed from southern or northern Wis- 
consin may be important. 
Xursery practice is not discussed in this bulletin. Good directions 
for nursery practice may be found in publications of the United 
States Department of Agriculture and in other publications (66, 67, 
68,69, 70). 
PLANTING OPERATIONS 
The cost for any individual planting operation depends on the con- 
ditions on the area to be planted. Three methods of forest planting 
have been previously described: (1) The hole method, by which a 
hole is dug for the tree with a spade or mattock: (2) the slit method, 
by which the trees are set in slits where plowing is impracticable; 
and (3) the slit-furrow method, by which the trees are set in slits in 
the bottom of plowed furrows. Labor is the largest cost element 
in these operations, varying locally, seasonally, and annually in this 
region in the last few years from 82 to 84.50 a day. An average cost 
of S3. 50 a day has been used as a basis for the following cost figures. 
By slit-furrow method a man may be expected to plant 1.500 to 2.000 
trees in a day. although records as high as 2.900 to 3.100 have been 
made by crews on the Huron Xational Forest. The cost of plant- 
ing exclusive of plowing by this method will be from 82.50 to $3 a 
thousand trees. In these and the following costs, about one-third 
of the labor cost has been added for supervision and equipment. By 
the slit method a man will plant 1.000 to 1.200 trees in a day. and 
the cost will be from 84 to $4.50 a thousand trees. The hole method 
is the slowe-t. and 400 to 600 trees per man per day at costs of $8 
to $11 a thousand are representative. 
Obviously, the number of trees to the acre directly affects the plant- 
ing cost on an acre basis. In the slit-furrow method the distance 
between furrows and, therefore, the amount of furrow to be plowed 
also affects the cost. The costs per acre of planting 1.740. 1.210. and 
680 trees to the acre for the different species, classes of nursery stock, 
and methods of planting are shown in Table 5. 
