REPORT OF THE STATE BOTANIST IQI3 49 
the amount of the original investment, and figuring at 6 per cent 
compound interest and including also taxation and protection, one 
can imagine that at the end of 120 years the value of the Scotch 
pine produced will scarcely yield a profitable return upon the in- 
vestment, not even with the present high value of timber in Germany. 
As the oberforster, however, is required by regulation to replant, 
the net planting expense of $36 is charged by him to the logging 
expense of the last rotation and the new growth starts with a clean 
bill of health, financially. It is burdened with only the soil value, 
taxation and protection expense upon the books; and the deduction 
of $36 from the receipts of the sale of timber does not seriously 
effect the profitable appearance of the forest accounts. In other 
words, the unique thing about this range is that merely by the 
method of bookkeeping the forest investment represented at Eber- 
stadt is a profitable one instead of a loss, and the planting expense 
does not hang with its accruing interest as a burden upon the finan- 
cial success of the next rotation, to be eliminated, possibly, only 
by the first or second thinnings. 
Because of the abundance of rabbits and deer, all the young 
plantations must be fenced. Woven wire fences are necessary, for 
which the annual expense on this range of 2500 acres is $500, but 
the item does not appear in the planting expense. There is an 
annual revenue from hunting privileges of $2000, and here again 
the oberforster shows his keen business ability in keeping down the 
value of the investment by charging this fencing expense to the 
revenues received from hunting privileges, rather than to the cost 
of reforestation. As a result of all this the range yields an annual 
net revenue of something over 3 per cent. It must be borne in 
mind, however, that the gross receipts are very large and that the 
cause of the low net revenue which prevails in practically all German 
forests (rarely rising to 6 per cent) is due to the relatively high 
valuation placed upon the soil in estimating the value of the invest- 
ment. 
2 THE PINERIES OF YSENBURG 
Ysenburg is situated on the level, sandy plain of the Rhine valley, 
a few miles south of Frankfurt. Three or four centuries ago the 
holdings of the princes of Ysenburg constituted one of the hundreds 
_ of small principalities of the old German empire. Napoleon re- 
duced these to but a few in number and the Landgraf (now Gross- 
herzog or Grand Duke) of Hesse-Darmstadt received dominion over 
Ysenburg. The princes, however, retained their land, if not their 
