The Economics of Forestry. 



By G. S. BOULGER, F.L.S., F.G.S,, Late Professor of Natural History in thb 

 Agricultural College, Cirencester. 



" The greatest happiness of the greatest number " is both practically 

 and theoretically taken as the object of collective human endeavours. 

 To attain this object is, therefore, the practical end in view in the 

 investigations of the science of wealth — plutology, or economics. 

 Wealth, welfare, and the common weal are closely related — nay, 

 identical — etymologically, and no less closely related in reality. 



The fundamental maxim of exchange is " to buy in the cheapest 

 market and to sell in the dearest," but an even more fundamental 

 maxim of a truly cosmopolitan science of economics would be "to 

 utilize to the full the powers of nature," that is " to produce as cheaply 

 as possible," and, therefore, " to produce the right thing in the right 

 place." 



No one thinks now-a-days of starting a coal mine far from rail or 

 other means of communication with the market, as they would be 

 undersold, yet there is still talk about home-grown this, that, and the 

 other, the patriotism of using inferior or dearer articles, or to encourage 

 home productions, and so on. This is surely contrary to common 

 sense. Let us hear, on the other hand, what that clear-sighted 

 economist, the late John Stuart Mill, has to say on the subject. 



"The benefit of international exchange, or, in other words, of 

 foreign commerce, consists in a more efficient employment of the 

 productive forces of the world. . . The produce of the whole world 

 would be greater or the labour less than it is if everything were 

 produced where there is the greatest absolute facility for its pro- 

 duction. . . If capital removed to remote parts of the world as 

 readily and for as small an inducement as it moves to another quarter 

 of the same town, . . profits would be alike or equivalent all over the 

 world, and all things would be produced in the places where the same 

 labour and capital would produce them in greatest quantity and of 

 best quality. A tendency may even now be observed towards such a 

 state of things ; capital is becoming more and more cosmopolitan ; 

 there is so much greater similarity of manners and institutions than 

 formerly, and so much less alienation of feeling among the more 



