DAMAGE ESTIMATES ' 99 



b. Young plantation of forest trees. 



Spruce twenty-five years old destroyed by fire; evidently the 

 stuff is of little use save as inferior fire wood. Assuming the cost 

 value of the stand to be forty-five dollars and the value of the dam- 

 aged wood to be ten dollars per acre the real damage is clearly thir- 

 ty-five dollars. 



If the wood is of no value and the man spends ten dollars per 

 acre to get the land cleared sufficiently to plant another crop, the 

 loss to him is fifty-five dollars. In the past the courts in the United 

 States judged the value of the timber solely as sale value. Since 

 the timber on this plantation has no sale value and since the man 

 actually incurred these losses it is only fair that he should receive 

 pay accordingly. 



To ask damages in proportion to an expectation value of this 

 stand, on assumption that at the age of eighty years, or fifty-five 

 years hence, the stand may be worth five hundred dollars an acre, 

 while perfectly reasonable, would not appeal to any court of justice. 



c. Older plantation of pine. 



Fifty-year-old stand completely destroyed, sale value is only one 

 hundred and twenty dollars an acre, but the expectation value on an 

 eighty year rotation is two hundred dollars. Which should be al- 

 lowed? Evidently the latter, or at least a compromise between sale 

 and expectation value. In this case the costs of establishing the 

 stand are remote ; it may have been natural reproduction on non- 

 agricultural land, etc., and might be less than fifty dollars. So it 

 would not be fair to restrict the price to this cost value. On the 

 other hand, expensive planting on costly land and much extra care, 

 cultivating, etc., might bring the cost value to two hundred and 

 fifty dollars, which in all probability would not be allowed. 



d. Ordinary Stand of wild woods. 



Timber on forty acres of hardwoods and hemlock is largely 

 destroyed by fire. History and conditions of the forty acres of 

 forest: bought 12 years ago at $800; interest rate 5%; ready to 

 cut 7 years from now ; timber 400 M. feet, present stumpage price 

 $5 per M. feet ; land now worth $10 per acre when cut over ; expect 

 stumpage to go to $6 in the next 7 years. Value of timber after 

 fire, $500 ; tax and care for the 40, $30 per year. 



