removed or is growing out of its class, we would have arrived at normal 

 condition for the selection forest. 



In the actual forest some one condition or all conditions will usually 

 be found abnormal. The normal accretion may be deficient, because the 

 area is not fully stocked or the timber is past its prime, old timber growing 

 at an inferior rate, or rot off-setting increment. The age classes are usual- 

 ly not present in proper gradation and amount ; some of them are probably 

 entirely lacking, others are in excess, either too many stands of older or 

 of younger timber, so that even if the normal stock of wood in amount be 

 on hand, it may be in abnormal distribution. 



Trie normal accretion can, of course, be established only by silvicultur- 

 al methods. The other two conditions are attained or approached by regu- 

 lating the felling budget in area and amount, so that gradually the age 

 classes and the normal stock are established. 



The simplest method would be to divide the forest into as many areas 

 as there are years or periods in the rotation, and cut one, or the equivalent 

 in volume, every year or during every period, when after one rotation the 

 age classes are established. If proper attention has been given to the re- 

 production and to keeping the reproduced areas fully stocked, the normal 

 conditions are attained after the forest has been once cut over, i.e., during 

 the first rotation. But this would burden the present generation with the 

 entire cost of securing the normality ; at the same time necessitating not 

 only unequal felling budgets, as better or poorer stands are cut, but also 

 requiring that the harvest of timber past its prime be deferred, if the forest 

 is largely composed of old age classes, or that immature timber be cut pre- 

 maturely if young age classes predominate in either case a financial loss. 

 Indeed, the greatest practical difficulty which confronts the forest regulator 

 is found in gauging the sacrifices which the present must make for the sake 

 of the future. 



Altogether, the principle of the "owner's interest" must be the guiding 

 one in the management of any property ; and it would first have to be de- 

 monstrated that a sustained yield management, either annual or intermit- 

 tent, and sacrifices of revenue in the present for the sake of a future im- 

 proved revenue are in his interest. For it must always be remembered that 

 financially forestry means foregoing present revenue or incurring present 

 expenditure for the sake of future revenue; it involves gauging present 

 and future advantages, and the time element, as we have seen, is the prom- 

 inent element in its finance calculations. 



Before an annual sustained yield management will appear profitable 

 in Canada, many changes in economic conditions will have to take place, 

 among which we may single out reduction of danger from fire ; opportun- 

 ity for utilizing inferior material : increase in wood prices by reduction of 

 the natural supplies on which no cost of production need be charged; the 

 development of desire for permanent investments instead of speculative 



