creased from 28 to 37 cubic feet per acre, and to 46.7 cubic feet in 1880, 

 nearly double what it was in 1829, yet the proportion of old timber over 80 

 years,or stock of merchantible timber on hand, increased during the last 20 

 years of the period from 23 per cent, to 27 per cent., showing that the cut 

 remained below the production. In the most intensively managed state 

 forests of Saxony, the cut has been doubled in the last fifty years, and yet 

 the stock of wood capital standing has increased over 16 per cent. ; while in 

 1845, of the cut per acre of 56 cubic feet, 11 per cent, was saw timber; in 

 1893, of the 90 cubic feet cut, 54 per cent, was timber fit for the mill. 

 The gross revenue increased during that time 234 per cent., and the net 

 revenue over 80 per cent. A financial calculation shows that the state's 

 property has not only paid 3 per cent, continuously in revenue, but has ap- 

 preciated in value 24 per cent, by mere accumulation of material. 



According to a conservative calculation based upon these experiences, 

 the forest resource of Germany represents, in round numbers, a capital 

 value of $180 per acre ($25 for the soil and $155 for the stock of wood) 

 paying a constant revenue of 3 per cent, on such capitalization ; or since 

 there are ^omewhat over 35,000,000 acres of forest, their capital value is 

 equal to $6,340,000,000, producing a continuous annual income of $190,- 

 000,000. The state properties are, moreover, constantly improving, and 

 the revenue constantly increasing. 



While, to the casual reader, this showing may hardly appear as a very 

 profitable business, we must not forget that the result is obtained for the 

 most part from soils which would otherwise be unproductive. 



It is apparent that we are bound to exhaust our stores in less time than 

 they can be replaced, that we are not living on interest, but are rapidly at- 

 tacking our wood capital a process fully in keeping with the development 

 of any new country, but also one against which reaction must set in in time, 

 if serious consequences are to be avoided. 



Such reaction may be secured first through a more economical use of 

 the timber resources, for the per capita consumption in Canada falls hard- 

 ly short of 300 cubic feet, nearly eight times that of Germany, and twenty 

 times that of England, and hence a large margin is left for such economies. 



Finally, however, forest management, as practiced in other countries, 

 will become an unavoidable necessity to secure the continued production 

 of needed wood supplies. 



There is one factor of national importance resulting from the indus- 

 tries concerned in the conversion of our virgin forests, which .does not at 

 all, or not to the same extent, attach to them in other countries, and which, 

 in the end, is of more moment than estimates of stumpage-or land values 

 or values of products can express. Not only does the lumberman with the 

 systematic development of his business, which has enabled him to supply a 

 superior article as cheaply as the inferior one is sold in Europe, give rise 

 to many manufactories and industries, and render possible the development 



