A couple of days ago I found myself in need of wood and, since I was out of logs, therefore went into the forest to cut some trees. While standing there I though about how nice it will be once we are able to plant trees ourselves, and I came up with a proposal for how the system might work. Note that I do not know every mechanic of this game and therefore all of these ideas might not work. I do not know if this has been discussed before but I haven't been able to find a thread on the matter.
So first to the basic forestry part:
Seeds are harvested from trees and have the same spawn rate as maple leaves but instead of 2 up to 10 seeds can be harvested from one tree, the seeds can then be planted (should require a shovel). When you plant a tree in this manner there should be a 1/5 chance that the seed won't grow but nothing to indicate if it worked or not. If successful the seed will sprout after 1-2 days (I think there should be some randomness to the time needed) and grow into a sapling. Trees that are harvested at this stage should drop 4-8 branches. You cannot pick seeds, branches or leaves from trees at this stage. Saplings can be picked up and moved but if they are their growth-timer should be reset.
After about 5-6 more days the tree should grow again, this time it will be a young tree, and will be considerably harder to cut down than at the previous stage. If cut down it will yield a small log, which can be cut into 20 blocks of wood but cannot be made into planks (the log wont be wide enough to make planks from). You can pick seeds, branches and leaves from trees at this stage, but they will only give 1 leaf and 15 branches, respawn-times for the leaves and branches should be the same as the respawn-time of maple leaves we have now.
After another 5-6 days the trees should finally be full grown, and should work exactly as they do now. You can pick seeds from these trees as well.
Growing trees like this take 11-14 days.
If you plant a seed in this manner the purity will be equal to sqrt(SEEDPURITY*3), e.g. if you have a seed with 35% purity the tree's purity will be 10%.
Now here comes the interesting part: Purity
The big difference between this way of growing trees and the one I described above takes place in the first growth stage. Instead of just planting the seed in the ground the seed is planted in a gardening pot, where the seed takes 4-5 days to grow into a sapling. When planting a seed in a pot there should be 1/1 chance of success, i.e. it always succeeds. When you plant a seed in a pot the purity value of the seed is multiplied with a random number between 0.85-1.15, e.g. if you plan a seed with 10% purity in a pot you could for example get the multiplier 1.10 in which case the base purity of the sapling will he 11%. This multiplier won't make much difference for low purity seeds but for high purity seeds the impact will be much bigger.
During the time the seed takes to sprout fertilizers can be added to the pot to raise the purity of the sapling. Some fertilizers should give a flat increase to the purity of the plan and some should increase the purity by a multiplier. E.g. if I have two fertilizers A and B, where A gives a flat bonus to purity and B is a multiplier. These can be added to the pot in two different orders, which, of course, give different results. If I ad A first the resulting purity would be equal to (SEEDPURITY+A)*B. But if I ad B first the purity would be (SEEDPURITY*B)+A. This, in turn, mean that if SEEDPURITY=0 the purity in the first case would end up being A*B but in the second case it would only be A. Like the the fertilizing system for fields the fertilizers would give smaller bonuses if more fertilizers are used. Also the there should be a limit on how many multiplying fertilizers respectively flat bonus fertilizers can be added.
Once the sapling is fully grown it can be picked and planted on the ground where it will grow as any other sapling. Fertilizers can be added to saplings that and trees in the second growth stage, though the the boost they give to purity will be greatly diminished, also fertilizers added at this point counts towards same limits as fertilizers added in the pot.
Growing trees in this manner takes 14-16.
Skills:
These are the skills I think should be relevant to foresting.
Foresting: Allows one to pick seeds from trees and plant them both in the ground and in pots (If you have gardening). Also allows one to fertilize trees (if you have agriculture).
Requires: Colonial Tradesmanship, Lore of The Lumberwoods.
Lumberjacking: Allows one to cut down trees faster and craft a sled (if one has carpentry) onto which up to 2 trees can be lain, the sled can then be drawn at the same pace as you can carry a log. The sled only requires wood and nails to construct. Allows one to asses the purity of saplings and trees.
Requires: Foresting.
This system could also be used for berry bushes and for determining purity of fruits picked from fruit-trees, (if we ever get those).
As to what the benefit of having high purity wood, apart from food and inspirationals, would be I don't know, I haven't gotten that far yet.
I apologize for the wall of text and also for any grammar or spelling mistakes that I have made.
What do you guys think?