Forest Finance and Management 153 



entails a considerable expense to which the or- 

 dinary lumberman is not subject. Yet this would 

 be no obstacle if the capital so sunk were certain to 

 return into the pocket of his owner with reasonable 

 profit. Can it be expected to do so with any degree 

 of certainty ? 



There was a time when the amount of merchant- 

 able timber in our natural forests was considered as 

 practically inexhaustible. To-day no intelligent man 

 believes it so. White-pine lumbering on a large 

 scale will cease within ten or fifteen years. Its 

 place will be taken by the southern yellow pines, 

 and to a smaller extent by the various soft woods of 

 the West. But this supply also will give out in a 

 not distant future, especially if consumption goes 

 on increasing in the way it has done of late. If 

 land-owners were to begin restocking their cut-over 

 land at the present time, they would have their new 

 growth in merchantable condition just about the 

 time when the last remnant of natural supply will 

 give out, and would be in condition to supply the 

 market practically without competition from natu- 

 rally grown timber. 



This conclusion is so obvious that the very fact 

 must make us suspicious. The men who stand at 

 the head of the great lumber corporations are cer- 

 tainly, as a rule, men of great ability, wide experi- 

 ence and large knowledge in the sphere of their 

 business. They are ever anxious to adopt new 

 methods by which their operations can be made 

 more successful. If the matter were so plain as we 



