Polk County observer. (Monmouth, Polk County, Or.) 1888-1927, 1910-08-02
ten TONS OF SEED.
GOVERNMENT is REPLANTING
FORESTS IN WESTERN STATES.
Gathering and Planting Thirty Million
Seeds Proves Tedious and Expensive
Task for Forestry Department.

Task for Forestry Department.
The U. S. Department of Agriculture
is using this year ON the National For
ests over ten tons of tree seed. Most
of this seed has already been planted
or sown. The rest will be utilized later
in the season, as favorable conditions
are presented.
1t takes a great many tree seeds to
make ten tons. Jack pine, the most
important tree for planting in the Me-
braska sand hills by the Forest Service,
will average something like 1850 to
the pound. OF Western yellow pine,
the tree most extensively planted
throughout the National Forests as a
whole, 10000 seed will make a pound.
Altogether the ten tons of seeds to be
used this year represent perhaps 900
million single seeds
If every seed could be depended up
on to produce a young tree suitable
for planting, the result would be sup
ply of nursery stock sufficient to plant
but no such result can be looked for
because many seeds do not germinate.
Most of the seed will be sown, either
broadcast or in seed spots, or planted
with a corn-planter, directly in the
place where the trees are to stand.
Even when nursery stock is raised,
liberal allowance must be made for
loss. In the first place, considerable
percentage of seeds will be found
not fertile. OF those which ;serminate
many will die before they leave the
nursery beds, and many more will be
lost in transplanting If from pound
of Western yellow pine seed that con-
tains 10000 individual seeds, 1000
thFee-year- old transplants are avail
able for field planting, the Department
of Agriculture has obtained satisfact-
ory results.
There are now twenty-four National
Forest nurseries with an annual pro-
ductive capacity of over million seed
lings. But there are many millions of
old burns ON the National Forests
which are waiting to be restocked, and
some quicker and cheaper method
than the actual planting of nursery
grown trees is urgently needed. There
fore, the foresters are making exper-
iments on a large scale with different
methods of direct sowing and planting,
and most of the seed gathered last
year was obtained for this use.
dro OFT iY,o hnan
found to give good results in some
regions. 1t was first tried in the Black
Hills of South Dakota, with an en-
couraging outcome. To broadcast an
acre of land with yellow pine seed,
about 8 pounds of seed is used. One
this method is the extent to which the
seed may be consumed by birds and
rodents. If the season happens to be
one in which food for these animals is
scarce the loss is very heavy. The
problem of control of animal pests,
such as field mice, ground squirrels,
and gophers, which eat the tree seeds,
and also the further problem of pre-
venting the depredations of rabbits,
which are altogethert 90 fond of the
little trees themselves, whether nurs-
cry transplants or field-grown seed
lings, is receiving the attention of the
Biological Survey experts of the De-
partment of Agriculture.
In some localities the Department
has had to purchase seed, but most
of that used is gathered by Forest
Service men themselves. The cost of
gathering has varied for the different
regions from thirty-five cents to one
dollar a pound. AS rule the seed is
collected in the fall months, when most
conifers ripen their seed. Parties of
three or four men ordinarily work to-
gether Where numbering is in pro-
gress the collectors follow the sawyers
and take the cones directly from the
felled trees. In standing timber, the
task is much more arduous. The men
must often climb tall pines and pull
the cones from the branches as best
they can. Where these are on the ex-
tremities and beyond the reach of the
hand pruning shears are used. The
cones are dropped to the ground ana
then gathered into buckets and trans
ferred to sacks. in which they are car
ried to central point for fun ther
treatment.
The extraction of the seeds is ted
ious rather than difficult. In some
cases the cones are spread out upon
sheets in the sun, when, after time,
they open and the seed drop out: in
other cases it is necessary to resort to
artificial heat. This is applied by plac-
ing the cones upon trays with screen
bottoms and raising the temperature
of the room to the proper degree. The
cones open, the wingeds seeds fall out.
and the seed is separated finally from
wings and dirt by a tanning mill. A
good many seed have been removed
from the cone by hand. but this is
sore trial to the fingers of the pickers
and an exceedingly slow process.