Figure 26. A view of seed sowing with a corn planter. San Isabel National Forest, Colorado
Figure 27. Sowing seed along contour lines on the slopes. Pike National Forest, Colorado
In selecting areas for planting, preference is usually given to the watersheds of streams important for irrigation and municipal water supply and to land which is capable of producing heavy stands of a quick-growing species or of a specially valuable species. Next in importance are areas which offer good opportunities for object lessons to the public in the practice of forestry. Some areas offer combinations of advantages. For instance, a burned-over tract may be suitable for planting to some rapid-growing species which is also valuable for timber and at the same time may be situated so that it will serve as an object lesson also. It is on such areas in general that reforestation by planting is being concentrated.
While the reforestation of the watersheds of streams important for irrigation and municipal water supply has a large financial value, this value is hard to estimate because it involves not actual cash profit but loss prevented. But when a favorable site is planted to a quick-growing, valuable, species, it is comparatively easy to arrive at a fair estimate of the possible profit on money invested. It has been estimated that under many conditions it is highly profitable to reforest waste lands on the National Forests by planting. From certain experiments made it is estimated that a white pine forest artificially established on a second-class forest soil in Minnesota, will yield about 46,500 board feet per acre in 50 years, worth at least $10 per thousand feet, or $465 per acre. Figuring the cost of planting and the cost of care and protection per acre per year at 3 per cent. compound interest gives a total cost of $34.07 per acre at the time the timber is cut and a net profit of $8.62 per acre per year. Douglas fir in the Northwest will produce 81,000 board feet in 80 years, worth at least $8.50 per thousand feet. After deducting all expenses this would leave a net profit of $555.30 in 80 years or about $6.94 per acre per year. These profits are indeed large, considering that the land is not capable of producing cereal or vegetable crops profitably. And it must be remembered that in all the above calculations all the money invested is earning 3 per cent. compound interest and that the net profits are the earnings in excess of this 3 per cent. interest.
The little trees that are set out on the National Forests every year are produced in large nurseries, where they are grown by the millions. In these nurseries the little trees receive the most expert care from the time the seeds germinate until the time they are large enough to withstand the rigors of wind and weather on the barren hillsides of Uncle Sam's Forests. The seeds are first carefully sown in seed beds and left to develop in these from one to three years. At the end of one year they may be transplanted in nursery rows where they will have more room to develop. Rapidly growing species like yellow pine are kept only a year in the seed bed and perhaps one or two years in the transplant beds; but slow growing species, like cedar, must remain in the seed beds two years and usually two years in the transplant beds. All this depends upon the species and the site upon which it is to be planted.
If my reader were to visit the Pikes Peak region during spring or fall he would doubtless encounter large gangs of men planting young trees on the barren mountain slopes. Under the proper supervision of Forest officers some of the men will be seen digging holes with a mattock while others are coming directly behind them with bags or boxes with wet moss or burlap, containing small trees. These men are called respectively the diggers and planters. Two men will plant from 500 to 1,000 trees a day, depending upon how deep the holes must be dug to accommodate the roots, whether the ground is bare or covered with sod, whether the land is mountainous or level, and many other factors.
In this way Uncle Sam plants his denuded areas in the Forests, so that they will be producing timber for future generations instead of useless brush or tree weeds. The great variety of climatic and topographic conditions included in the National Forest area makes the problem of tree planting infinitely complex. Nursery stock must be raised in each region having similar climatic conditions, and in each of these regions different methods of planting must be used, depending upon local conditions. The semi-arid mesas of Arizona and New Mexico present different planting problems from the humid forest regions of Oregon and Washington; the methods used in the sandhills of Nebraska and the sand plains of Michigan cannot be applied in full on the high mountain slopes of Colorado; nor are the planting problems in the vast chaparral areas of northern California anything like those encountered in the mountains of Idaho, or in the prairie States of the Middle West, or in the Black Hills. Then, again, the reforestation problems of the chaparral fields of southern California are more perplexing than any I have mentioned above.
