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FORESTRY INVESTIGATIONS U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



From these figures it appears that the several governments expend on an average about 

 *1.06 per acre per year on their forest property, and that they obtain thereby a gross income of 

 $3.47 per acre and a net revenue of $1.81, or 52 per cent of the gross income per acre per year. 

 Considering the $1.81 as the interest on the value of the forest lands, and using the 3 per cent 

 interest rate as customary for large investments, these figures show that by proper management 

 the German States keep their poorest lands at a capital value of over $60 per acre; in other 

 words, that the German State forests pay $19,000,000 for labor and taxes, and in addition pay 

 interest at 3 per cent on a capital of $00 per acre. A large part of this laud if deforested would 

 not support a farmer and would rapidly degenerate into mountain pasture and heath, which at 

 best could not be sold at over $5 per acre, and even then would prove more a detriment than 

 advantage to the community. It also appears from the above figures that the revenue is largely 

 in proportion to the expenses, that the forest which is best cared for also pays the best. The 

 same conclusion is reached by a study of the past. In 1850, when the total expenses per acre in 

 the Prussian forests were only 37 cents, the net income was only 40 cents; to-day it is $1.38 and 

 the net income $1.28, and the same holds for other States. Thus Saxony expended 80 cents 

 an acre per year in the beginning of this century and received 95 cents net income; to-day she 

 spends $2.36 and receives $4.54, or nearly fivefold. That these advances are not merely the 

 expression of higher prices for wood is clear from the fact that the average price of wood for the 

 Prussian cut (300,000,000 cubic feet) has advanced since 1850 from $3.27 per 100 cubic feet to only 

 $4.40, or 37 per cent, while the net income rose from 46 cents to $1.28, or 176 per cent. 



Since so much has been argued as to the impossibilities and impracticability of employing 

 these better forestry methods elsewhere, and especially since the idea of sowing or planting forests 

 has at all times been ridiculed in the United States, it may be of interest to note just how Germany 

 expends her money in the woods. 



The following figures present the various large items as per cent of the gross income. Thus 

 the total expenses in the Prussian forest use up 50 per cent of the gross income, the logging alone 

 14.8 per cent, etc. 



The expenses represented the following proportions of the total income in per cent: 



The above figures are doubly interesting, since they show that in Saxony, the very State where 

 the timber is usually cut clean and the land restocked entirely by planting it with nursery stock, 

 the item of planting, etc., uses up the smallest per cent of the total income 6.4 per cent. 



From this brief outline it will be apparent that forestry in its modern sense is not a new, 

 untried experiment in Germany; that the accurate official records of several States for the last 

 one hundred years prove conclusively that wherever a systematic, continuous effort has been made, 

 as in the case of all State forests, whether of large or small territories, the enterprise was successful ; 

 that it proved of great advantage to the country, furnished a handsome revenue where otherwise 

 no returns could be expected, led to the establishment of permanent woodworking industries, and 

 thus gave opportunity for labor and capital to be active, not spasmodically, not speculative, but 

 continuous and with assurance of success. This rule has, fortunately, not a single exception. To 

 be sure, isolated tracts away from railroad or water, sand dunes, and rocky promontories exist in 

 every State, and the management of these poor forest areas costs all the tract can bring and often 

 more; but the wood is needed, the dune or waste is a nuisance, and the State has found it profit- 

 able to convert it into forest, even though the direct revenue falls short of the expense. 



