92 
POTTING. MOSSING. 
block of protecting humus intact, is then lifted out with a trowel and settled in a 
place already prepared to receive it. The prepared place will not e a ceep 10 e > 
but a turned sod cleft in the centre with a spade. An ounce or two ot blood and 
bone manure under the sod will enable the young eucalypt to win in the race wit 
weeds. Wooden trays measuring inside 2ft. 2in. in length and 1ft. in width wi 
be found very convenient for carrying out this method. In the State forests 
nurseries kerosene or benzine boxes are used, each being cut into two lengthwise. 
The important thing to be remembered in boxing is that each plant must be allowed 
room to grow and a sufficient share of the humus to protect its roots when it is 
removed from the box. Crowding too many plants into a box is false economy and 
defeats its own aim. A less spacing than 2/4 inches each way will mean that some 
plants will have their roots stripped bare when they are removed from the box and 
that there will be losses. It will be more satisfactory to have in each box 35 plants 
every one of which will grow and do well, than to have therein 60, 10 to 20 of w ic l 
will fail and need to be replaced in the lines the following season. 
( 2 ) Potting. 
Another method similar in effect to the one just described is to put each plant 
while still very small into a paper or earthenware pot. The potted plants are 
placed together in a frame or other suitable place and kept moist by occasional 
spraying with water until they have recovered from the shock of removal from the 
seed-bed. Then they are hardened by exposure to more open and trying conditions. 
When the season for planting arrives, the plants are carried to the permanent 
ground and comfortably settled in prepared places. Paper pots will by this time 
be in a state of decay, and may be either left on the plants or carefully removed. 
Generally it will be better to remove them and nip off any spiral or straggling roots, 
thus avoiding the risk of a bad root system in the future life of the tree. 
( 3 ) Mossing. 
Another method for protecting the roots of the plants is mossing. The best 
moss for the purpose is the long sphagnum found very commonly in damp hollows 
and swamps; but other kinds may be used. The plants are lifted while they are 
still small, preferably two or three weeks after wrenching, and the roots of each 
wrapped in a pad of moss, which is then tied with a strip of flax so as to form an 
oval ball. Any long roots that would reach beyond the moss must be cut off as it 
is bad practice in balling plants to fold or bend back any of the roots. Immediately 
after mossing, the plants are either sprayed or dipped in a tub of water. They 
are then placed upright in the ground in a close row. Within two or three weeks 
they will form new rootlets which will strike into and through the moss. Any time 
after that, when season and weather are favourable, the plants may be carried to 
the prepared ground and with the moss about their roots undisturbed, planted in 
their permanent positions. In preparing plants for long journeys or in cases 
where planting may be indefinitely delayed, success will be more assured if a small 
piece of scrim or manure sack is firmly wrapped and tied over the ball of moss. 
Plants prepared in this way may be put out at almost any time within a year from 
the mossing, provided they are freely watered if handled in dry weather. 
