XIV 
TREATMENT OF THE FOREST 
FOREST management in the Adirondacks by owners 
other than the State must meet two conditions : 
Ist. The returns must be substantial enough to 
make it a profitable real property investment. Other- 
wise the lumbermen, most clubs, and nearly all private 
land owners will be unwilling to adopt it. The State 
may be satisfied with two per cent. interest on the 
capital invested, but the lumbermen could not consider 
such a proposition. 
2d. The system of management must secure the 
establishment of a crop of trees to take the place of the 
timber cut, and it must improve the condition of the 
forest. 
Ordinary lumbering pays a high interest now, but it 
leaves the forest in a very bad condition. Intensive 
forest management would secure most desirable results 
in the next crop, but it would pay too low a rate of 
interest now. A practicable system of management 
must then be a compromise, bringing sufficient returns 
to the owner to make it profitable for him to undertake 
it, and yet insuring an ample reproduction to establish 
new crops. 
The cost of building and maintaining permanent 
roads is so great that the lumbermen could not afford 
to keep all parts of the forest always accessible for 
logging. It will not be possible to continue the cutting 
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