Standardization of Instruction. 373 



in marking timber for cutting under a chosen system of silvi- 

 culture, laying out of a logging operation and perhaps practical 

 instruction in forests could be had, the ideal of conditions would 

 be reached. 



Forest Finance. 



Forest Finance concerns itself with all financial matters per- 

 taining to forests and forest management. The subject divides 

 itself naturally into two branches, namely forest valuation, the 

 ascertainment of values and forest statics, the comparison of 

 values, with a view of satisfying the financial aims of forest man- 

 agement. The first is applied to determine values of forest prop- 

 erties for sale, exchange, damage suits, taxation, etc., the second 

 is to determine the most profitable procedures in carrying on the 

 forestry business. 



Forest Finance bears the same relation to management as 

 mensuration does — they are both handmaidens to management, 

 and mensuration, the ascertainment of volumes, must furnish the 

 data for finance, the ascertainment of values. Valuation as an 

 academic subject requires the discussion of the factors which in 

 general create values, of the economic laws which influence prices, 

 markets, values, interest rates, etc. These problems of economic 

 theory belong to the field of political economy and may have been 

 sufficiently discussed in the courses of that department, and hence 

 proper co-ordination is indicated. There still remains, however, 

 for the teacher of forest finance the necessity of discussing the 

 special features and peculiarities of forest values, besides the 

 mathematical methods of determining values, which on account 

 of the compound interest calculations often needed become some- 

 what complicated. 



There is danger of making the mathematical method, the means 

 to an end, appear as the end, failing to bring out the practical 

 judgment which always is needed in making valuations. The best 

 method of teaching the subject is by means of problems, which 

 as far as possible should be taken from practical life, when the 

 practical considerations entering into the problem can also be dis- 

 cussed while developing the method of calculation. The methods 

 are fully developed in European text books, but the device of 

 methods and their application under our conditions need judg- 

 ment. Nowhere else so often mav the theory be correct and vet 



