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tablishment, to plan, organize, and manage the business so as to secure, 

 continuously and systematically, a regular annual income nearly equal or 

 increasing year by year. 



The lumberman or forest exploiter also plans and organizes his busi- 

 ness for annual returns, not, however, to be derived continuously from the 

 same ground ; he seeks a new field, he changes his location as soon as he 

 has exhausted the accumulated stores of his forest property, which he then 

 abandons and devotes to other purposes than wood-cropping. 



The forester's business is based upon the conception of what is techni- 

 cally called the "sustained yield," a continued systematic use of the same 

 property for wood-crops, the best and largest possible ; this is secured by 

 proper attention to silviculture, reproducing systematically the harvested 

 crop. Finally, when the industry is fully established, he is annually to de- 

 rive this "sustained yield" as far as practicable in equal or nearly equal 

 amounts forever, under an "annual sustained yield management." This 

 is secured by means of forest regulation, the principal branch of forest 

 economy, which comprises the methods of regulating the conduct of the 

 business so as to secure finally the ideal of the forester a forest so ar- 

 ranged that annually, forever, the samt amount of wood product, namely, 

 that which grows annually on all his acres, may be harvested in the most 

 profitable form. 



As in every business, there is an ideal, a standard in conduct and con- 

 dition, which the manager more or less consciously recognizes and follows, 

 or seeks to establish, yet, on account of uncontrollable circumstances can 

 never quite attain, so is the ideal of the forester never quite attainable, al- 

 though it is his obligation to attempt and approach it as far as practicable. 



The ideal conduct of the management "for annual sustained yield" is 

 possible only under the ideal condition, which the forester recognizes in the 

 "normal forest," the standard by which he measures his actual forest and 

 to which he desires, as nearly and as quickly as circumstances permit, to 

 bring his actual forest. The latter will usually be found abnormal in some 

 one direction, or in several directions, and hence makes the ideal conduct 

 impossible. The object of forest regulation, then, is to prepare for the 

 change of an abnormal forest into a normal forest. 



In simplest terms, the normal forest is a forest in such condition that 

 it is possible to harvest annually forever the best attainable product ; or to 

 secure continuously the largest possible revenue. 



While we have assumed, for the sake of simplicity of conception that 

 the stands of different age, the age classes, are separate in area the one 

 from the other, it is readily conceivable that all, or some of them, may be 

 mixed together, on the same area, as in the selection forest, where all age 

 classes, from the seedling to the matured timber, are mingled ; and if there 

 are enough trees in gradation from the older to the younger, allowing for 

 losses, so that the younger age class can replace in amount the older as it is 



