40 4 Agricultural Journal of Victoria. 



instance, the comparatively recent demand for wood paper pulp 

 — thousands of trees are annually converted into paper. Germany 

 uses in this way 40,000,000 cubic feet per annum, and she is not the 

 only country doing so. Another industry, where wood has taken the 

 place of stone, is in road construction. The State of Victoria may 

 not participate in the paper pulp industry, but she can in wood paving- 

 blocks. Mines must have timber and firewood, so that as far as the 

 State is concerned the demand for her chief forest produce is likely to 

 be large, and with little chance of decreasing. 



Next to wood, as a forest produce minor products often take a not 

 inconsiderable position. All produce other than wood and firewood 

 is included under minor forest produce. This term covers a variety 

 of articles, bark for tanning, bark for dye stuifs, turpentine, resin, 

 gum, fruit, seeds, fibres, grass, moss, peat, honey, wax, and numerous 

 other substances not found in Victorian forests. The wattle bark 

 industry of the State in some forests far exceeds in revenue any other. 

 It is estimated that minor forest produce is imported into England to 

 the value of £8,000,000 annually. 



Capital Represented by a Forest. 



The capital invested, so to speak, in a forest is represented by the 

 soil and the products growing on it. If the forest is worked irregu- 

 larly the capital must fluctuate ; but if a proper system is adopted 

 and the work systematically conducted, an equal annual return is 

 assured, and the capital remains unchanged. The soil represents the 

 fixed capital, and the growing stock the shifting capital in forestry. 

 The proportion of the one to the other is influenced by the treatment 

 the forest gets. In a coppice forest, which we call scrub country, the 

 fixed or soil capital is as a rule greater than the shifting ; but in high 

 forest, where the trees are left for milling purposes, the shifting 

 capital far exceeds the fixed. Let us take as an example an area of 

 100 acres. This is divided into 100 one acre lots ; in No. 1 lot the 

 seedlings are one year old, in No. 2 they are two years old, and so on 

 up to No. 100 lot, where they are 100 years old. This lot is cut over, 

 and as is the case with Victorian forests, natural reproduction will at 

 once follow. There will then be 99 lots still left stocked with trees 

 from one to 99 years old, the following year No. 99 lot will be 100 

 years old and will be cut over, and so on each succeeding year till the 

 first felled lot is again arrived at, at the end of 100 years, when the 

 same order of things is gone through, ad infinitum. Without this 

 system of age gradations it would be impossible to obtain a regular 

 yield of trees 100 years old. The above system of forestry is known 

 as the Eotation System, and is undoubtedly the system most suitable 

 to Victoria. 



The above example clearly proves that the shifting capital increases 

 with the length of rotation or full maturity of the growing stock, 

 that the growing stock is at first smaller than the value of the land, 

 about equal to it when half grown, and exceeds it when fully matured. 



