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16—47372-1 GPO

HOW AND WHEN TO COLLECT
Waite PINE SEED

This and next year’s crop of cones. Large ones
mature and ready for picking.

By F. W, RANE

MassacHusetTts STATE Forester
ee Room 7, State House
BOSTON, MASS., - - U.S.A.

The Staminate (male) and Pistillate (female) flowers
of the White Pine. These appear a year before
the cones develop; hence it is an easy matter to q
determine a year in advance of a seed crop. ‘

Gift

eare

“HOW AND WHEN TO COLLECT

9 WHITE PINE SEED

Rs

oT E white pine (Pinus Strobus) is one
of the most common trees found in

Massachusetts and New England, and is of

great economic and esthetic value, yet the

writer finds that little is known about its

method of propagation.

Even teachers and those who have studied
botany and nature study, and again farmers
and men who have worked in the woods
or at the lumber industry all their lives,
seem never to have given the matter any
thought or definite observation.

White pine is grown from seed only;
it does not sprout from the roots when cut,

as our hard woods. In replanting
er Pine our waste and abandoned lands
seed only with white pine, the first step Is to
collect the seed. Some evidently
think pine trees come from nothing, or were

4

created, perhaps, but this is not the way
Nature does things. If we expect an agri-

cultural crop, the kind of grain desired is

planted; just so with growing the white pine. _
Pine seed comes from the cones which

seal

grow upon the pine trees. The cones are —

Seed

heb? tree. Old single pasture pines,

or those growing in clumps or along the

edges of the forest, and more or less limbed,

more abundant upon trees of
comes twenty years of age or more, and
from pine are located near the top of the —

commonly called “cabbage pines,” are usu-

ally the greater seed bearers. These trees,
also, are the easier to collect the cones from.

It requires two seasons for the white pine
cones to mature. The embryo cone, which
is the pistillate (female) blossom —

Two
seasons __ Of the pine, forms in the spring of

forseeds the year, at which time it is fer-

to mature *le
tilized, and can be seen through-

out that whole season as a small, upright, —

)

so-called “Christmas candle,” an inch or so
long. When vegetation starts the second
season, however, the white pine cone takes
on activity, and by August it reaches full
size, which varies from four to six inches in
length. During this time the seeds form at
the base and under the scales. “The cones
remain green until the latter part of August
or fore part of September, depending upon
the nature of the season, when they mature
and turn brown. When mature, the cones,
while still hanging on the tree, open up
(spread out their scales) at the first dry
period, thus allowing the seeds which have
been concealed to drop out. Each pine
seed is hla with a delicate wing, in

some respects resembling the wing
ae , ofa bee, and this assists the seed
by wings very much in its distribution.

With scarcely any wind the seeds
travel for some distance before they reach
the ground, so with a strong gale at time of

6

shedding, one can imagine how far they
may be distributed. The finding of isolated
pine seedlings is often accounted for in this
way. The prevailing wind at time the cones
are opening governs the territory seeded.

If we desire to collect white pine seed, it
is important that the cones be collected
before they open and lose their

Collect ; a
cones seed. ‘This may be done in
eee the latter part of the month of
they open

August, any time before the
cones open.
There are various methods of collecting
the cones, but the best advice is to get them
somehow. Picking with a long
Methods ladder is one way; another, and
of collect- : 5
ing cones One that will recommend itself,
is to find out where lumbening is
going on, and collect the cones as they fell
the trees.
When connected with the New Hamp-
shire College the writer tried a number of

7

ways of solving this problem. One which
worked very nicely was to send about four
or five boys up the trees to pick the cones
and throw them over the branches to the
ground, while another one remained upon
the ground and gathered them into bags.
The cones may again be gathered by pick-
ing and putting directly in a bag which is
attached to the shoulder, similar to the man-
ner of picking apples. Old gluten or feed
bags, inexpensive and commonly available
about farmers’ barns, answer very well for
this purpose.
The number or quantity of cones that
can be gathered in a day will vary as to
the yield per tree, method of
Mother ; ‘ 2
seedtrees gathering, etc. As white pine
box-boards throughout New Eng-
land are in great demand, and at a relatively
high price, even the old “cabbage pines,”
full of limbs, a few years ago considered
valueless, are at present rapidly going to the

8

sawmill. ‘These old trees in the past have
been the great seed producers and mother
trees of our present forest stands. If they
are destroyed, however, where must we look
for our future pines ?

One man, with two assistants, in a seed
year spent nearly two days in cutting down

about 50 pine trees and picking
An

example
in collect- two wagon loads, some 50 bush-
ing pine
seed

the cones from them, and gathered

els before the cones were open.
When they were dried out and
opened, he had fully 100 bushels of cones
and nearly 5 bushels of uncleaned seed.
His method of drying was to spread them
out where the sun could shine on them, rak-
ing the pile over often, covering them with
a canvas at night and in rainy weather. If
the cones get wet they close up. It took
in this case two weeks to get the seeds
from the cones.

White pine cone with scales open and seed gone.
White pine needles grow in clusters of five.

10

After the cones are gathered it is not
necessary that the seed be secured from.
them at once. They may be:
eee deposited in any dry place, where
cones squirrels or mice are kept from)
them, and the seed thrashed out
later. The practice of using a bag to put
the cones in is convenient, for as they open|
up the bag can be flailed at odd times and)
the seed falls out into the bottom and is
readily collected.

Should one have a greenhouse, it is usu-
ally available about the time the cones are’
ripe, and if they are placed here for a short
time, avoiding any moisture for a few days,
the high temperature will open the cone
very quickly. The writer has made it
practice simply to place the bags in th
greenhouse, and then turn and flail them occa-
sionally, when the seed is easily separated.

A hotbed or cold-frame sash could be mad

to serve the same purpose on a small scale.

1]

"here are probably many other ingenious
rays of extracting the seed from the cones
hat will occur to different ones which will
oe equally good.

White pine seed has averaged in price in
recent years from $1.50 to $4.50 a pound.
During the spring of 1907 the
price in large quantities was $3.75
a pound.

White pine seed if given normal condi-
sions, not too moist or excessively dry, re-
tains its vitality for several years.
Vitality The reason that the seed has been
so high is that the demand has
increased very rapidly in this

It is hoped that this brief pamphlet will
ssist in calling attention to the importance
eo itant of gathering white pine seed each
to collect year, when it is fruiting. We
Paed should ultimately consider the im-

2

portance of harvesting this crop, just the
same as any other. ]
The writer would consider it a great
benefit to New England, and Massachusetts
in particular, if enough people.
could be interested so that a regu-
lar pine seed campaign could be,
kept up until the seeds of this most inpor-
tant forest tree could be purchased at 50
cents a pound, and it is believed it can be:
done.
With pine and other forest tree seeds 1
plenty, at reasonable prices, people generally
will begin to start small nursery
ile Se beds in their gardens and fields,
prey which will in turn give us seed-
lings and transplants at a muc
more rational forestry basis than they ca
be obtained at present.
There are from 20,000 to 30,000 whit
pine seeds in a pound, and it is customary fo
nurserymen to plant this amount upon a be

Pine seed
campaign

13

feet wide and 50 feet long. Under nor-
al conditions, which will be described in
a forthcoming circular, a person

me, ought to raise 10,000 to 15,000
a pound seedlings on this area. With
the above data, and knowing the

istance apart that pines are set, usually
5 by 6 feet, one can figure out for himself
he cost of growing his own stock of plants.
It has been the endeavor of the wniter to
ell in a precise and practical way just how
and when to collect the white

eclothing pine seed. It now remains to be
.. seen how many we can get to do
something in this line. All per-

ons interested in reclothing our waste lands,
nd in establishing economic and esthetic
forestry conditions throughout this Common-
ealth and New England, will find that
ractising and impressing the simple begin-
gs of forestry on others will go far toward

ultimate solution.

14 f
Expensive forestry seeds and seedlings.
are the greatest drawbacks at the present’
time to beginning forestry work.
pera Let us remedy it. ‘There are:
or high
prices few seedsmen who handle forest:
tree seeds, and the comparatively
little demand until now has made the busi-
ness an uncertain one, and hence the prices)
are high. :
If white pine sells for even $2 a pound,
no one cares to sow broadcast five pounds:
per acre, as is recommended by some
seedsmen, as the expense makes the opera-
tion anything but practical. No one cares
to use five or ten dollars’ worth of seed on:
land that is in itself almost valueless. Col-
lecting the seed one’s self, however, obviates;
this difficulty and makes the conditions 'more:
favorable.
There is much inquiry as to how often)
white pine produces seed. Somehow the
Seed year idea is quite firmly established in

15

‘the minds of many that a seed year once
jn seven is a fixed law. From observation
‘there seems to be no definite regularity in
Nature. A white pine, like other trees, if
jit yields a maximum crop one year, is not
\likely to produce another heavy crop in from
\three to seven, depending upon the seasons
sand other conditions. ‘The writer has seen
itwo heavy crops in one locality only four
‘years apart. Examples are not uncommon,
jalso, where a pine tree may be fruiting a
fair number of cones and at the same time
thave embryo cones which are to fruit the
following season.

Not all sections of the State are likely to
iseed the same year, although they may.
By inquiry it is found that one section may
‘have a heavy crop, while another may have
none. In this way seed usually can be had
from some section each year.

The seeds of spruce, hemlock, and other
evergreens are collected in like manner as

16

seed of _ the pine. Of course, they van
other in size of cone and seed
eversreen® time of maturity.

Deciduous trees, or hard woods, are also
easily grown from seed, and when one gets
interested in collecting and 7
ing the white pine, it is only a
step toward later interest and
pleasure in the whole forestry question.

We need to cultivate as a people a real
love for out-of-door life, and there is noth-
ing that awakens interest and a
love for Nature herself more than’
the forests and their associations.

At a later time a companion booklet on)
methods of planting and caring for seedlings:
will be issued.

Hardwoods
from seed

Forests
and Nature

F. W. RANE,

State Forester

State House, Boston, Mass.,
August 1, 1907

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