FOREST POLICY. 



Vi 



In America, unfortunately, no stumpage is left, practically, close 

 to the market, so that the owner cannot, when cutting the 

 stumpage, set aside a part of the receipts for afforestation. 



Far from the market, on the other hand, the value of the 

 stumpage is often less than the cost at which a plantation might 

 be startea, be it by planting or by self-sown seed. 



Far from the market, only such stumpage can be raised which 

 commands a very high price in the market. 



Such stumpage consists of valuable prime big trees, trees of 

 a character obtainable only by long rotations, and by investments 

 extending over centuries rather than over decades of years. 



Near the market, inferior lumber may be grown successfully. 

 Such lumber can be produced in short rotations and by invest- 

 ments extending over fifty or a hundred years. 



This must be so for another reason : the value of poor soil 

 (like the value of stumpage and the value of any other com- 

 modity or any other producing factor) is larger near the market 

 than far from the market. In conservative forestry, the charge 

 for interest on soil value is particularly heavy. It accumulates 

 against the value of the trees in a geometric ratio, as the years 

 pass by. 



In the case' of long rotations on valuable soil, the accumulation 

 of interest charges exceeds in the end the value of the timber. 



Short rotations alone can stop the accumulation of the interest 

 charges. 



Under a fixed system of freight rates, there must exist, under 

 otherwise equal conditions, a zone encircling a consuming centre, 

 within which conservative and constructive forestry are the most 

 remunerative; it is that zone at which the sum of the freight 

 charges on wood goods plus the interest charges on soil values 

 is at a minimum. Within this zone, destructive forestry is 

 undertaken only on soil having a higher value distinctly so 

 under agriculture than under forestry. 



Since agricultural produce is more valuable, and can be shipped 

 for longer distances than forest produce, the zone or the beh 

 fit for conservative and constructive forestry is apt to lie in close 

 proximity to the city indeed just beyond the zone characterised 

 by the truck farmer and the milkman. 



