Periodical Literature. gy 



the methods of calculation at least are supposed to be well de- 

 veloped. These methods the author reviews critically. He points 

 out first that in the usual formulas it is customary to place all 

 yields free of harvest cost without making distinction between 

 the cheaper harvest in clearing- than in natural regeneration ; that 

 the incomes are supposed to repeat themselves forever in equal 

 amounts; that interest rates are supposed to be eternally the 

 same. "Rate of interest, thou art a rock, though you have more 

 the nature of a nervous woman, who is subject to every mood." 



The expenditures for administration and taxes are figured as 

 annually equal and charged against all stands in direct propor- 

 tion to the area. But (even in Germany) eight to nine-tenths of 

 all this expense is chargeable to harvest only i. e. to the mature 

 stands alone. Thus, a 25 year old spruce stand, which may have 

 cost $10 to plant, and then required no attention whatever until 

 now a thinning may be made, has already charged against it 

 36.46 times the annual administration and tax expense — an il- 

 logical procedure. Similar considerations show that the cost of 

 planting or regenerating are for bare ground, properly placed at 

 the year of calculation, but for ready forest belong to the harvest 

 time and, indeed, are chargeable to harvest, for in a sustained 

 yield management replacement is the primary condition. 



No wonder that since the methods not only rely upon unsafe 

 basic data, but declare variable quantities constant, charge where 

 charges are not justified, and hence are faulty, many thinking 

 foresters refuse to use them for practical purposes. All such 

 calculations, it should be admitted, have no absolute, only relative 

 value. The author then points out as unfortunate and mislead- 

 ing the use of the term "soil expectancy value", since the formula 

 corresponding to it, expresses not a soil value, only a step towards 

 the determination of such value, being merely a statement of the 

 numerical result of a certain method of management. To make 

 it a real soil value, there must be deducted the profit that a user 

 of the soil (a buyer) would expect to make from his management. 



Looking at the statics of the stand, the first question that arises 

 is as to how to consider its value whether cost value, sale value, 

 expectancy value. It is pointed out that the cost value may be 

 often higher than the other two, and that as long as there is 

 no actual sale value (felling value), the stand cannot be sub- 

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