68 THE BOOK OF FORESTRY 



fungus attacks may lay them low before the young trees 

 come to maturity and the land is ready for the next 

 harvest. In many cases it would be far better business 

 management to cut down these large overmature trees 

 and spend a portion of the revenue obtained therefrom 

 in planting the area with young seedlings or trans- 

 plants. 



Finally, forest planting represents a good financial 

 investment. In the past, owing to the enormous rise in 

 timber values, many large fortunes have been made 

 by purchasing wild forest lands. While forest planting 

 offers no such speculative opportunities at present, 

 nevertheless it does promise to yield at least four to 

 five per cent compound interest on the investment? 

 Favorable laws regarding taxes on forest lands, and the 

 vast improvement in forest fire organizations maintained 

 by States, lumber companies and timber land associa- 

 tions are making this plan of investment much safer 

 and quite comparable to long-term bonds. In spite of 

 the fact that in certain parts of the country halfgrown 

 timber may be bought at an extremely low figure, con- 

 sidering the vanishing timber supply, the idle land and 

 water storage problems, reforestation on a large scale 

 appears to be splendid investment for States, water 

 companies, and any organization with continuous exist- 

 ence. 



If it is wise to reforest non-agricultural lands, some 

 may ask why not follow Nature's method and scatter 

 seed broadcast upon the ground. The reasons against 

 this method are as follows: In the first place the cost 

 of seed in such quantities as Nature uses would be out 

 of the question. For to collect cones, dry them, extract 

 the seed, to say nothing of the labor of cleaning and 

 scattering seed brings the per acre cost of such an 



