32 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



cut down by lower interest rates. For a time owners may be expected 

 to hold on to investments earning lower rates than their capital would 

 earn elsewhere, but in the end they will withdraw their capital as best 

 they may and put it elsewhere. The holding of the timber land and 

 keeping it under continuous production would be a justifiable invest- 

 ment if two conditions are met, viz., cheap capital to hold the timber 

 with and good returns from manufacture of it when cut. 



Forests properly handled produce continuous yield. Their capital 

 value under these conditions suffers no decline with time but on the 

 contrary constantly increases because within modern times all civilized 

 countries have shown constant increase in timber values. When the 

 wood capital of a forest is handled like a store of minerals the finance 

 and economics of the forest becomes identical with that of the mine. 

 Since with the exception of the farm woodlots and some of the New 

 England forests, practically all our private forests are handled on the 

 timber mine basis, our prevailing ideas of forest finance and economics 

 even in the case of professional foresters are adapted to that mode of 

 management. Only a few have been able to conceive of the forest as 

 a living, growing thing which can be made to furnish continuous product. 

 When we have thought of it as >aelding growth we have been unable to 

 visualize the forest organized to give returns every year. As a conse- 

 quence we think nearly always of forestry as starting with a bare tract. 

 Under such conditions the forest becomes an expense accotmt for 50 

 years or more. Such an investment in a large way is wholly impractic- 

 able for private enterprise and even for public enterprise if we expect 

 to deal with our vast forest problem effectively. Wealthy and thickly 

 populated France appears to have planted up in the course of more than 

 a century some 5,000,000 acres, the state, communes and private owners 

 all working together. The State of Washington alone at its present 

 rate of cutting will log off this amount in twenty years. If the forest is 

 completely wrecked in this process, as is the general rule, a century 

 will not suffice to repair the loss, but the forest problem of the State of 

 Washington is only a small item in the total problem of the nation. 



The truth is that the only effective way to save this resoiirce is 

 to keep the forests we have producing continuously, that is, start our 

 forestry with and while we have the forest. Under these conditions 

 the forest yields annual revenue from which all expense of taxes, pro- 

 tection and regeneration may be met. It has been conceded, however, 

 that even then the forest will yield only 3 to 5 per cent on the invest- 

 ment from current returns. The percentage relation between the capital 



