Dec. 15, 1925 
Studies in Western Yellow Pine Nursery Practice 1119 
Table VIII. — Survival, and growth of seedlings under different methods of watering, 
1918-14 
Condition of seed 
Survival of seed germinating 
Measurements, second fall 
Method of treatment 
Germination 
First fall 
Second fall 
Root 
length 
Stem 
length 
Leaf 
length 
Stem 
diam¬ 
eter 
Cultivation only__ __ 
Number 
759 
Per cent 
63.2 
Number 
509 
Per cent 
67.1 
Number 
331 
Per cent 
43.6 
Inches 
11.7 
Inches 
2.3 
Inches 
1.9 
Mm. 
1.8 
Cultivation and water¬ 
ing__ 
943 
78.6 
622 
66.0 
441 
46.8 
14.4 
3.0 
2.3 
2.3 
Watering only... 
753 
63.2 
484 
64.3 
298 
39.6 
13.6 
2.8 
2.1 
2.1 
Table IX. — Survival and growth in the transplant bed under different methods of 
watering, 1915 
Season transplanted 
Treatment 
Survival of 
transplants 
Measurements (fall) 
Spring 
Fall 
Height 
Diame¬ 
ter 
Size 
factor * 
Fall 
Cultivation only__ 
Per cent 
95.4 
Per cent 
82.0 
Inches 
3.5 
Mm. 
3.2 
5.60 
Cultivation and watering_ 
91.8 
82.5 
3.7 
3.2 
5.92 
Watering only-- 
90.2 
78.6 
3.4 
3.1 
5.27 
Spring - _ 
Cultivation only_ 
96.0 
88.2 
4.0 
3.1 
6.20 
Cultivation and watering- 
92.8 
88.2 
3.6 
3.3 
5.94 
Watering only__.. 
95.0 
88.8 
3.3 
2.9 
4.78 
° One-half diameter multiplied by height. 
The points brought out by the tables may be summarized as follows: 
The largest plants were produced in the artificially watered beds. 
The beneficial effect of cultivation is clearly seen in the fact that the 
bed which was both watered and cultivated, even though it received 
only half as much water as the bed which was watered and not 
cultivated, produced noticeably larger plants than did the latter. 
The soil moisture figures in Table VII show that the watered and 
cultivated bed had at all times practically as high a water content 
in the root zones as had the more heavily watered bed. The culti¬ 
vating evidently helped to preserve moisture, but the greater growth 
in the cultivated bed must have been primarily due to the stirring of 
the soil rather than to the preservation of moisture. The exact 
effect of this stirring of the soil is not known, but ikmay have helped 
in aerating the soil and liberating plant food. One point indicated 
by the moisture-content data is that when the surface is cultivated, 
only half as much water is needed to maintain the soil moisture at a 
desirable point as when cultivation is not done. 
The minimum moisture content figures show that soil moisture, 
even in the cultivated and unwatered bed, never approached a 
critical point. The hygroscopic moisture for similar soil in the 
vicinity is less than 4 per cent, and the lowest percentage reached 
was only 14.5. 
Table VIII shows the measurements of the average 2-year-old 
seedlings from the three differently treated beds. The greater 
average size of the plants in the moderately watered and cultivated 
