While oak culture was especially fostered in Northwestern Germany, the cultivation of _conifers_ first received attention in the southwest, and in the same manner which was inaugurated by the Nuremberg seed dealer in 1368. A new idea, introduced in the Palatine Forest Ordinance (1565) and in the Bavarian Forest Ordinance (1568), was the prescription, to soak the seed before use and sow mixed with sawdust or sand, bringing the seed under with brush or iron rakes. Carlowitz (1713) taught well the methods of collecting, extracting and keeping the seed, and even proposed seed tests. The seedbeds were to be made as for carrots, dense sowings to be thinned, and the thinnings transplanted into nursery rows, the seedbeds to be covered with moss and litter to protect them against heaving; he also discusses the question of cost. The adaptation of plant material to different sites--conifers where oaks are not suitable--was also understood (Bavarian Forest Ordinance, 1683). As long as the old method of extracting the seed in hot stoves or ovens prevailed, conifer sowings gave but indifferent results. In the pine forests of Prussia, during the second half of the 18th century, the method of sowing the cones on large waste and sand barrens, where the sun would make them release the seed, was practised, and before Brémontier had written his celebrated _mémoire sur les dunes_, sanddunes had been recovered with pine plantations in Germany in the manner which is still in vogue. The _planting_ of conifers came into practice much later, and then it was mostly done with wildlings. Opinions differing as to the value of sowing or planting, it was erroneously held until the 19th century that planting was less successful and too costly in comparison with the small harvest yield, which necessitated cheapness of operations. It was only towards the end of the 18th century that planting of pine was resorted to, but merely for repairing fail places in sowings and natural regeneration, and then with a ball of earth (1779), using a hollow spade,--a costly method. The cost of a certain plantation made in 1751 is, however, reported as less than $3.00 per M., in 1770 as low as 70 cents per M. To cheapen the operations the labor was exchanged for wood, pasture or other materials or advantages. In Prussia, in 1773, all recipients of free wood had to do service in the cultures; in 1785, every farmer had to furnish a certain amount of cones or acorns. The method, lately adopted in Russia, came into vogue in Prussia in 1719, namely, of charging, besides the value of the wood, a toll to be paid into the planting fund (about 7% of the value). This method was also imitated elsewhere.