6 BULLETIN 153, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
_ ESTABLISHMENT OF PLANTATIONS. 
NURSERY STOCK. 
In choosing planting stock the planting site and the probable. care 
of the growing seedlings must be taken into account. With hard- 
wood trees, such as ash, maple, locust, or catalpa, 1-year-old stock 
is suitable. It costs less, is cheaper to plant, and is just as likely to 
thrive as older stock. 
With coniferous trees, such as pine or spruce, 2-year-old seedlings 
or transplants or 3-year-old transplants are best. Transplant stock 
of conifers, when 2 or 3 years old, has a more fibrous and better 
developed root system than corresponding seedling stock, and is 
more likely to succeed than the latter, especially under unfavorable 
conditions. Transplant stock should always be used on heavy soils 
where for any reason cultivation is impossible and the young trees 
must compete with a heavy growth of grass. This would apply, for 
example, to cut-over areas filled with roots of old trees and to very 
steep slopes. 
Tree seedlings, especially of hardwoods, can be raised on a farm at 
low cost and with almost as little trouble as a bed of vegetables. 
The seed may be purchased or collected locally and planted in driils 
in soil prepared in the same manner as for vegetable crops. Stocks 
thus raised can be left in the seedbed until it is convenient for the 
owner to plant it. This plan avoids possible damage to the stock 
during shipment from a commercial nursery or unforeseen delays in 
planting the stock after it is received. One-year-old hardwood stock 
varies in height from less than a foot to more than 4 feet. A tree’s 
height growth during the first year usually indicates its future vital- 
ity. Thus the taller trees grown in the seedbed should be given 
preference in planting. In the case of a plantation of black locust 
in Indiana, where the planting stock was raised by the owner, the 
smaller stuff was about 3 feet and the larger 7 feet tall after two 
years’ growth in the seedbed. The larger and smaller trees were 
planted separately on similar sites. After four years the 7-foot seed- 
lings were 20 feet high, while the 3-foot seedlings were only 12 feet 
high. 
Advantage could be taken of this characteristic by planting the 
more and the less vigorous trees in mixture, the shorter ones merely 
as fillers to be cut out when the stand becomes crowded, the taller 
trees to constitute the stand to be left until maturity. 
Conifers are not so easily propagated as hardwoods, and it would 
ordinarily be best to purchase coniferous seedlings or transplants 
rather than raise the stock at home. Conifer stock should be pur- 
chased either from reputable nurserymen or from those State nurseries 
which offer it for sale. If a fairly large number of young plants are 
