The Republican journal., 1910-08-04
Restocking National Forests.
Uncle Sam is Sending Out Over Ten Tons
of Free Seed.

of Free Seed.
WASHINGTON, D. c., July Both. The
U. S. Department of Agriculture is using
this year on the National Forests 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 i'm
portant tree for planting in the Nebraska
sand hills by the Forest Service, will
average something like $4,000 to the
pound. Of Western yellow pine, tie
r1ost extensively planted throughout the
National Forests as a whole, 1000 seed
will make a pound. Altogether the ten
tons of seed to be used this year repre-
sent perhaps 300 million single seeds.
If every seed could be depended on to
produce young tree suitable for plant
ing, the result would be a supply of nur-
sery stock sufficient to plant three hun
bred thousand acres of land, but no such
results can be looked for because many
seeds do not terminate. Most of the
seed will be sown, either broadcast or in
seed spots, or planted with a compliant
err, directly in the place where the trees
are to stand.
Even when nursery stock is raised a
liberal allowance must be made for loss.
In the first place, considerable percent
age of the seed will be found to be in
fertile. Of those which terminate, many
will die before they leave the nursery
beds, and many more will be lost in
transplanting. If from a pound of
Western yellow pine seed that contains
10, 600 individual seeds, 1900 three-year-
old transplants are available for field
planting, the Department of Agriculture
has obtained satisfactory results.
There are now twenty-four National
Forest nurseries with an annual produc-
tive capacity of over million seedlings.
But there are many millions of old burns
on the National Forests which are wait
/ ing W NC IColONhSd3 old oOILlC QAlShS1 ollu
cheaper method than the actual planting
of nursery grown trees is urgently need
ed. Therefore the foresters are making
experiments on a large scale with differ
ent methods of direct sowing and plant
ing, and most of the seed gathered last
year was obtained for this use.
Broadcasting has already been found
to give good results in some regions. 1t
was first tried in the Black Hills of South
Dakota, with an encouraging outcome.
To broadcast an acre of land with yellow
pine seed about 8 pounds of seed is used.
One of the most formidable drawbacks
to this method is the extent to which the
seed may be consumed by birds and ro-
dents. 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 preventing the dep
relations of rabbits, which are altogeth-
er too fond of the little trees themselves,
whether nursery transplants or field
grown seedlings. is receiving the atten
ton of the Biological Survey experts of
the Department 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 pound.
AS rule the seed is collected in the fall
months, when most conifers ripen their
seed. Parties of three or four men Or
dinarily work together. When lumber
ing is in progress the collectors follow
the sawyers and take the cones directly
from the felled trees. In standing tim
Der, 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 extremi-
ties and beyond the reach of the hand,
pruning shears are used. The cones are
cropped to the ground and then gathered
into buckets and transferred to sacks, in
which they are carried to a central point
for further treatment
The extraction of the seed is tedious,
rather than difficult In some cases the
cones are spread out upon sheets in the
sun, when, after time, they open and
the seed drops out; in other cases it is
necessary to resort to artificial heat.
This is applied by placing the cones upon
trays with screen bottoms and raising
the temperature of the room to the
proper degree. The cones open, the
winged seeds fall out, and the seed is
separated finally from wings and dirt by
a tanning mill. A good many seeds have
been removed from the cones by hand,
but this is sore trial to the fingers of
the pickers and an exceedingly slow
process.