When seed cannot be purchased, it is necessary to collect. Since
no species of coniferous trees bear abundant crops of seed each
year and often several seasons will elapse between good crops, it
is necessary to gather sufficient seed when the supply is abundant
to provide for succeeding years when the crop is apt to be a failure.

The seed ripens in the fall, usually during August or September,
and the cones should be collected at that time. Pines require two
years in which to mature the seed; that is, the cones are not fully
formed and the seed ripe until the second fall after the fertilization
of the flowers in the spring. Most of the other important conifers
ripen their seed in the fall of the same season. Shortly after
the seed is ripe, the cones open and allow it to disseminate,
consequently they must be gathered before this occurs.

The cones are gathered either by climbing the trees and cutting
them off from the branches, by picking from the tops of felled
trees, or by robbing squirrels' hoards. Where squirrels are abundant
in the forest, the last method is the cheapest. Climbing trees
is practiced only where the trees are small. When this method is
employed, the workmen should be equipped with linemen's belts and
climbers. Picking from felled trees is readily carried on except
where dense underbrush interferes, as is the case in the ordinary
Douglas fir forest.

Trees growing in the open, with large crowns extending down the
greater part of the bole, bear cones more abundantly than trees
in dense forests, and for this reason collecting from scattered
open growths can be done more cheaply than on logging areas. Often