Show niukini i fi at the bead of big cottonwood in tile the wasatch mountains A not far from salt lake lahe city uncle sam has one oi of the most important of the he nine plant ing stations which have haie been established in the national forests thru out the country of all the planting stations that me gle maintained by the forest service this his one perhaps is the most ideal and it promises to become one of the lest producers it i Is estimated that under tile the present capacity 1000 seedlings can be grown annually and it if it becomes necessary the nursery can be increased to two or three times its present size the planting operations are in charge of N J fetherolf planting aik oik ing aug under the direction ot of E H clarke supervisor ot of the salt lake and wasatch national forests this station is intended tor for the production ot of forest tice seedlings tor for 11 planting on oil important watersheds in the he wasatch mountain this nursery has a one halt half acre in seedbeds seed beds and a good sized area is available for use in transplanting the seedlings after they have grown in the seedbeds one or two years forest planting is becoming more and more important c each ach year and the public generally realizes that I 1 if t the he supply of com merical timber is to be maintained a great deal of planting must be done in the future the government has encouraged private alanl owners throughout the middle west to plant trees upon their homesteads st cad and within the last five or six ears advice in foiest planting has been given to thousands of farmers in the middle west there are now over 15 million in national N forests and within It bin these aie included vast adeas of land that require forest planting because eed trees are wholly lacking among the vadious policies connected l with the management 0 of the national N forests that of forest planting is yet in its infancy but within a comparatively ively short time it will assume greater importance in ill the general management 0 of the national forests it requires from two to four years to produce p a stock sufficiently large for planting and therefore the process of reforestation at the beginning must be slow any planting that is done in the vicinity of tills this station will serve two purposes pui poses first improvement pro of the watershed cover oi of an important drainage basin from which salt lake city is supplied and at the same saine time the production ot of commercial timber on land that formerly bore an excellent stand but which has been devastated by careless lumbering and foiest fires it will be one or two years before any stock Is available tor for planting blut blut then there here should be at least trees ready to set out on the mountain side there is no question about the success of field planting since the region is potentially a forest area thiele is abundant opportunity for experimental work in testing new species and this spring seed of a large number of flees that are not common to the wasatch mountains have been sown at the nursery to determine their adaptability to that region seed of japanese larch which is very similar to the european larch has been sown at this station 11 and while it is not certain just what the results will lie be bet et it is beli eed that this may prove to be a valuable tree for planting certain sites it is estimated that there are over ares acres within range of this station which are arc in very urgent need of reforestation in 23 25 years the barren slopes will be green again with trees and the planted forests will be improving the water flow which is of great worth to salt lake city |