Development of Forest Finance. 139 



of compound interest calculations, while Hartig, 1812, 

 still uses only simple interest, and exhibits in his 

 book as well as in his instructions for practice in the 

 Prussian state forests rather mixed notions on the 

 subject. 



Altogether, even in the earlier part of the period, 

 there arose considerable difference of opinion and 

 warm discussions, in which all the prominent foresters 

 took part, as to the use of interest rates and methods 

 of calculation. But this warfare broke into a red hot 

 flame when Faustmann (1849) with much mathe- 

 matical apparatus developed his formula for the soil 

 expectancy value, and when Pressler and G. Heyer 

 transferred the discussion into statical fields, making 

 the question of the financial rotation the issue. Then 

 the advocates of the soil rent and of the forest rent 

 theories ranged themselves in opposite camps. This 

 war of opinions, although abated in fervor, still con- 

 tinues, and the issue is by no means settled. 



The discussion of what should be considered the 

 proper felling age or rotation naturally occupied the 

 minds of foresters from early times; a maximum 

 volume production being originally the main aim. 

 As early as 1799, Seutter had recognized the fact that 

 the culmination of volume production had been 

 obtained when the average accretion had culminated. 

 Hartig, in 1808, made the distinction of a physical, 

 an economic and a mercantilistic, i.e., financial felling 

 age, and Pfeil, considerably ahead of his time, is the 

 first to call (1820) for a rotation based on maximum 

 soil rent. As, however, he had so often done, he 

 changed his mind, and while he first advocated even 



