APR!!. 4 
FORESTRY-NO. 9. 
DR. JOHN A. WARDER. 
Preparation for Planting—Nature's way— 
American methods—European Plans, 
Thorough preparation advised wherever 
such a method is at all practicable. It will 
tell in the diminished eapense of cultivation 
and it will be repaid by the more rapid 
growth of the trees, especially white young. 
In prairie plantation it is essential to sub¬ 
due the natural herbage before planting. 
Nature has her own ways of doing her own 
worn, some of which may appear to us very 
crude and uncertain, and, in the matter un¬ 
der consideration, some of these will be con¬ 
sidered very unlikely to be atteuued with 
success. The destructive conflagration, the 
terrible tornado, the swollen torrent or the 
mighty flood of the turbid river, stirring the 
sands in its deepest channels and spreading 
them over the lowlands on its hanks, or pil¬ 
ing them up in sand bars or tow-treads at¬ 
tached to some sunken log or rock, these 
would seem to be poor methods or prepara¬ 
tion for future forests, and yet these ail, at 
times, uro the ways in which the soil is pre¬ 
pared for the reception of the seeds thut ar e 
to spring up and grow into the natural for¬ 
ests. Therefore it may be well for us in 
many cases to study Nature’s ways, for we 
may be assured that, we may thus gather 
hmts which will ofteu prove of great value. 
This is essentially true in tree-planting, 
many and most valuable lessons in forestry 
are derivable from the observations made m 
the open book of her writing if we be but 
■willing to read them aright. 
It behooves us, however, to be careful how 
we read, and we should ever bear in nnnd 
that our necessities may be very different 
from hers, and especially should we remem¬ 
ber that the leugth of tune required to pro¬ 
duce a certaiu eifeeb, though it be a factor of 
great moment in man’s operations, is a mat¬ 
ter of no account in the great cosmical opera¬ 
tions of creation ; thougu to us time is fleet¬ 
ing, all that we cau take note of is but a point 
on the lengthened threud of the ages. We 
desire quick results, even in the production 
of forest trees, which are slow enough at the 
best, and the planter anxiously inquires the 
tree rotation, the period of its maturity, and 
the rate ol progress of the different species, 
before deciding upon the selection he will 
make for his planting. 
Therelore impatient man is not satisfied to 
copy the slow processes by which Dame Na¬ 
ture has changed the bore surface of the rocks 
into fruitful soil by means of gradual disinte¬ 
gration, aided by the successive growth and 
decay of repented crops of the lower orders of 
plants, combined with the slow accumulations 
of debris derived from the decomposition of 
the rocks themselves that are eventually to 
prepare the earth’s surface for the growth of 
noble trees. Neither will he care to copy her 
methods of successive rotations of different 
classes of arboreal growtfls, that are some¬ 
times Considered to be a necessary prepara¬ 
tion for the production, at a Inter period, of 
those with more noble characters aud higher 
value. No; in his impatience he will rather 
step at once in medias res—he will lake the 
world as it is, already made for his usee. 
So also in the matter under consideration: 
in preparing the soil for plauung our trees we 
need not wait to copy nature until an exteu- 
sive conflagration shall have destroyed all ex¬ 
isting vegetation to make room for our new 
planting, nor for the overflow of turbid 
streams to prepare us fertile seed beds, upon 
which the Summer winds shall wait the wing¬ 
ed seeds, whetlier of poplars, willows, planes, 
maples or pines, thut a favoring shower shall 
plant for tUe future natural forest. Nor shall 
we bo content to wait for the grudual scatter- 
iug of seeds by birds or rodents that may 
place them on the soil under circumstances fa¬ 
vorable for germination. And y et, as a mat¬ 
ter of fact, while we are heedlessly neglecting 
our duty of tree planting, all these methods 
of Nature are being carried forward, unseen 
oi unnoticed and unconsidered, perhaps under 
our very eyes and all about us. 
Truly, however, we uuiy learn a great deal, 
and we may profitably copy much from Na¬ 
ture’s modes of preparation for the nourish¬ 
ment and protection of the young members of 
her sylvan products. 
i he fires clear the surface of dead and living 
encumbrances, leaving a fair field for the 
liaidy little plants that have long been sujr- 
pressed by the dense shade of the previous for¬ 
ests, aud for the germination and development 
of a new crop of seedlings. In the “wind-fail’ 
caused by a cyclone which may have pros¬ 
trated or even uprooted the original monarchs 
of the forest, the smaller aud smothered 
grow ths escape from destruction and at once 
ussert their claims to the free air and light ad¬ 
mitted to them. 
kt-By the gradual introduction of briars and 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
other bushes in open places, notably in neg¬ 
lected fields aud old pastures, in hedge-rows 
and fence-corners, about which the leaves ac¬ 
cumulate and decay, Nature provides a place 
for her tree planters to work most effectually 
for our benefit. These shelters invite the little 
rodents to deposit nuts, acorns and other large 
see. Is for their Winter supplies. On the top¬ 
most twigs of the brambles come the birds to 
rest, or tc gather new supplies, and mayhap 
to drop many a half-digested seed in places 
where they may germinate and where the ten¬ 
der seedlings wifi be protected from the sun 
and wind, as well as from the interference of 
man aud his cattle that would soon have de¬ 
stroyed them had they been exposed. By all 
these agencies the surface at length becomes 
occupied by trees—a slow process of prepara¬ 
tion, truly; but Nature can afford to go slowly 
on with her work, and at the end of one or two 
gen rations man reaps the benefit on many an 
old field m spite oi his own neglect, indeed as 
a legitimate couseyueuce of it. This, however, 
is no apology tor the neglect, for, by a proper 
preparation of the soil lor sy sterna tic and ju¬ 
dicious planting, a much better result would 
have been obtained in a shorter period and the 
woodland would have been more evenly stock¬ 
ed with more appropriate and more valuable 
species of trees than could reasonably be ex¬ 
pected from the natural w f ay. 
Doubtless the advanced forest science of 
Europe has been largely aided by the close 
observation of Nature, aud, where practica¬ 
ble, by imitating her methods. Thus it was 
noticed even by the casual traveler that when 
a forest uf pines was removed it was rarely 
again replanted at once, though the forest reg¬ 
ulations demand that the land shall not re¬ 
main unoccupied, it is allowed a rest for three 
years, in these dense forests the coniferous 
trees, with their close canopy of foliage, have 
subdued all und-rgrowih, aud when the pines 
are felled the ground is left hare of vegetation; 
there cau be no rapid succession of oaks and 
other trees such as is frequently seen in this 
country, and which is ofteu cited as a case of 
natural rotation of crops, and as something 
marvelous, though it may readily be ex¬ 
plained. 
There the pines themselves were originally 
planted by man, and thickly planted; the soil 
is often uncongenial to the oak and to some 
other broad leafed species, but were it other¬ 
wise and had the squirrels planted the seeds, 
they might have germinated, but could not 
have survived under the dense shade, and the 
land is left bare after telling. In that country 
experience has taught the forester that he 
must not attempt to replant the land for a re¬ 
newal of the forest until after a few years of 
Nature’s preparation of the soil, which fur¬ 
nishes the shelter that is needed by the young 
trees to be planted. 
This necessary preparation is one the Amer¬ 
ican farmer or botanist would never have 
guessed; it consists in a continuous under¬ 
growth of heather, of whortleberries and of 
brackens or other ferns and mosses. The most 
abundant of the heaths in the German forests 
is the Calluna vulgaris, called Ling in Scot¬ 
land. These plauts in a few years cover the 
whole surface, but the last-named, the Heath, 
prevails iu most of the cleared forests aud is 
most highly valued, since it affords the requi¬ 
site shelter and protection to the lender little 
plants that are to be introduced for the new 
plantation it shelters without smothering. 
The holes (called pits in Scotland) are 
then dug, or the clefts ure opened with a 
strong spade, for receiving the trees, and that 
is the usual method of preparing the soil for 
forest planting over vast areas of Northern 
Europe. In other places, aud where the use 
of the plow is practicable, furrows are opened 
every few feet, into which the seeds or even 
the freshly gathered pine cones are scattered 
and left to themselves or rudely raked in. 
In the moorlands and in some of the sandy 
tracts of the north of Germany, something 
more in accord with our notions of preparation 
of the soil is practiced. Where necessary the 
moors are drained, and if a hard-pan is found 
this is broken through after which the land is 
thoroughly plowed and prepared for plantiug 
the Scotch Pines that are usiuilly selected for 
such situations. 
As the value of the stumps for fire-wood 
will justify the expense of grubbing, they 
are removed, and on sloping sides of the 
mountains where this is practicable, the ground 
is plowed and sown with rye among which 
the tree seeds are mingled. The little plant- 
lets thus receive during their first season the 
sheltering shade of the grain and of the stub¬ 
bles after harvest, but on these bights the 
grain crop is very light and the tree plants do 
not succeed so well as when of larger size, 
nursery-grown, and regularly planted in piws 
or notches. 
Such a meager preparation of the soil would 
not answer in our richer soils, with their 
ranker growths of weeds and grasses, and we 
find it absolutely necessary first to subdue the 
native vegetation by thorough plowing, and 
even by taking off one or more crops before 
attempting to plant the trees. This is essential 
in all our Western prairie lands, and even in 
the Blue Grass region where attempts have 
been made to stock the land anew, after chop¬ 
ping off the timber, or by planting in the open 
spaces among scattering trees, it has been 
found that tne grass aud other weeds and 
herbage destroyed the little trees, or it cost 
more Uiun they were worth to eradicate them. 
In such a place you can hope for success only 
by setting out trees of larger size with corres¬ 
pondingly increased cost and labor. 
The more thorough preparation of the soil 
must be insisted upon in the prairie regions, 
where, up to this time the most of our exten¬ 
sive planting has been done. The object being 
to completely kill out the grasses aud coarse 
perennial weeds, the annual weeds that follow 
the plow aie disposed of with comparative 
ease by means of our improved implements of 
culture. 
Iu the thinner and partially exhausted lands 
of the older States and near the seaboard, 
these difficulties may not exist, and experi¬ 
ments with the simpler methods usually prac- 
ti :ed in Europe have been found successful, as 
ou the peninsula of Cape Cod and in ether 
places, aud yet even there it may be found 
desirable to expend more labor upon the prep¬ 
aration of the soil for the sake of the trees 
themselves that are unproved in their growth 
By good cultivation, such as can only be prac¬ 
ticed after good preparation. Then again the 
stand of plants will be more regular and the 
expense of replanting will be avoided. 
In this matter of preparation the early re¬ 
sults of our tentative experiments m American 
Forestry, bid fair to exceed those of most 
European operators, where the routine of cus 
toms has become established, aud where the 
surrounding couditiuus of the soil may not re¬ 
quire the same care of its preparation, and 
where too, iu many cases, /ns is also true here 
on lands that cannot bo plowed, such work is 
impracticable. 
The next paper will be upon the practical 
methods of planting the trees in the lands ap¬ 
propriated to the new forests. 
RAYS. 
Professor Eaton of Yale College has a 
fragrant, piuk-llowered pond lily a root of 
which he bought from Woolsou & Co., Passaic, 
N. J., some years ago, for $8, aud he is much 
pleased with his success with it. He grows 
it in a tub—half of a barrel—which is half 
filled with good loamy soil and to the brim 
with water. Iu the Bummer time the tub is 
sunk in the earth to half its depth in a worm 
place faintly shaded by an apple tree, and 
there the lily grows finely aud bears from 
four to eight blossoms iu a season. He gets no 
seeds because he plucks the flowers for pre¬ 
sentation to his friends, but the lily evidently 
spreads considerably by its creeping root- 
stock as the tub is now pretty well filled with 
crowns. When Mrs. Hayes, of the White 
House, visited New Haven a year or tw T o ago 
Prof. Eaton presented her with one of his 
piak lily blossoms and she seemed very much 
pleased with the rare and delicious tribute, 
in the Fail when the Lily is about to go to 
iest„the Professor takes up the tub, empties 
out the water, aud on a stout plank slides the 
heavy tub into a cool cellar, where it remains 
without further attention or any more water 
till Spring, when it is again brought forth 
to its former Summer quarters, filled with 
water and kept full. 
* * 
Green, slimy confer vie are troublesome in 
in-door and out-door wuter tanks, but Pro¬ 
fessor Eatou assures me that a moderate de¬ 
gree of care and the introduction to the water 
tanks of some water snails—such as are found 
plentifully about ditches—and carp will keep 
the water pretty clean. 
* A 
Mr. Wilson, of Salem, Mass., tells me that 
in his son’s market garden and farm in Ne¬ 
braska, the grasshoppers, two years ago, ate 
every green thing except some Rose Geran¬ 
iums, and these they did not touch. 
* * 
Last Summer a neighbor sowed some seeds 
of the Blue-flowered Pond Lily in four-inch 
pots which had been filled half full with 
drainage and brimful with sandy soil. He then 
set the pots into saucers kept full with water, 
and now he has quite a thicket of seedlings. 
When the seed pots are altogether immersed 
in water a green scuru of confervas is apt to 
gather about and choke the sprouting seed¬ 
lings, but that is avoided in the above case. 
* * 
A prominent nurseryman writes me.—“ It 
is impossible to please all. But again we 
meet so many nice people and our business 
brings us iuto communication with so many 
kind, good, warm friends that we must be 
prepared to bear a little. If they have no 
245 
faith we must have charity.” That is so. And 
I find, as a rule, the less a person knows about 
the things he wants, the more umeasonable 
he is. Know what you want and ask for it 
and deal with those only whom you know 
to be of good reputation and honest. 
* + 
Mr. Croxciier, who for many years was 
general foreman at Lew, ami for ohe past 
ten years has had efiarge of the most compre¬ 
hensive and best grown collection of cactuses 
and other succuieut plants grown in any 
garden in the World, namely, that at Beed- 
bury House, Loudou, has just come to Ameri¬ 
ca to stay here. He tells me that lor cactuses 
aud succulents generally charcoal water is the 
best cleanser and iuvigorator he has ever tried. 
He used to put a lot of tmely Dioten char¬ 
coal mto his water tanks, aud used only this 
for watering and syringing. He assures me 
that the eff ects are quickly visible iu the deep 
greeuness aud plumpness of the plants, and 
it soon proves tatal lu scales and also to the 
mealy bugs which usually infest the root* and 
tops of cactuses. 
* * 
It is time we were thinking of and preparing 
for our Bummer gardens. Most of us put in a 
stock of cuttings in the Fall of such plants as 
geraniums, luchsias, ageratums, sa a ea, co¬ 
leuses, henotropes, Loon’s Nasturtiums, ice 
plants, German Ivy, and such other deco¬ 
rative plants as are showy, easily grown and 
as easily wintered. These cuttings having 
beeu inserted thickly in pots or shallow boxes 
therein to remain uudisiurbed during Winter 
as a matter of economy of space and care, 
should now be potted off singly or boxed off 
afresh, this time more thinly tnan before and 
in richer soil. If the cuttings huve grown 
long, their tops had better be pinched off 
and either thrown away or used as fresU 
cuttings. In repotting aud reboxmg the fail- 
strucE cuttings we should not mutilate the 
roots any mure than vve can help, a great 
many of them wid be broken off anyway, as 
they become so matted together alter remain¬ 
ing from tour to six months cramped up in 
‘■store" pots and boxes, iu potting better 
use small pots, say three-inch ones, to begin 
with, and if necessary shift again, four to six 
weeks hence, into four-inch pots. Arrange 
the uewly-potted-off cuttiuga in light, warm 
windows at first and witn a newspaper or 
piece of muslin or other cloth, shade them 
from hot sunshine for a few days. Or, if 
you nave a cold-frame or pit which you can 
keep warm by wrapping it up well with mats 
or ocher material, that will be a good home 
for all of the hardier plants, as geraniums 
and ageratums, but coleuses and heliotropes 
had better be kept in warmer quarters, as the 
house, till the end of March at any rate. But 
a gentle hot-bed would beau excellent place 
for any and all of them. 
* * 
Hot-beds are of various kinds, but the 
simplest is usually the must satisfactory. 
Borne folks have brick pits two to three feet 
in depth under ground and one foot above 
ground at front and one-and-one-half foot at 
back ; six to seveu feet in width uocording 
to Che length of their sashes, and as long 
as they choose according to tne number 
of their sashes, thus a sash being three feet 
wide a four-sash frame would be twelve feet 
long. Others have spruce or pine plank pits 
after the same fashion as the brick ones but 
seldom as deep ; instead of plank being used 
for the under-ground lining, old boards of any 
kind are generally employed. Btrips or 
rafters cross the frame-boxes just under 
where the sashes meet, to support the sashes 
in sliding them up and down aud keep the 
sides iu proper place. 1 dovetail my frame 
strips but do not nail them, aud consequently 
can take them off aud put them on at pleasure. 
Where the grouud is very wet on the surface, 
as m a hollow, sunk hot-beds are ape to be¬ 
come water-logged in rainy weather and in 
consequence cooled ; to avoid this gardeners 
sometimes build their hot-beds above ground 
altogether, aud in this case they make a 
square heap of manure, say, eight feet wide 
(two feet wider than the sashes are long so as 
to give a footing for a lining) and two to three 
feet high, and on the top of this set up or¬ 
dinary frames and bank them around with a 
good lining of manure. I have just bought a 
lot of new three by six feetsasheH, first quality, 
one three quarter inch thick, glazed with 
double-thick, third-quality glass, for $2 each. 
Those sashes were made to order at the fac¬ 
tory. The usual sash is three-by-six-feet, by 
one-and-one-half inch aud single-thick glass, 
and will cost a little less than miiie. They 
are primed at the factory but not painted. 
* * 
The heating material lor hot-beds is rank, 
fresh stable manure, and that which is well 
moistened in the stable in preference to 
that which is dry and “ burned.” The ma¬ 
nure being brought from the cellar of the 
stable should be well shaken aud piled up 
iuto a heap to heat, and iu a few days turned 
over aud built into a heap again for a fe 
