Financial Considerations. Ill 



tions whicli have to take into consideration uncertain 

 fiitnre developments, and were satisfied with producing 

 a satisfactory balance, a surplus of income over expenses, 

 no matter what interest rate on the capital involved in 

 soil and forest growth that might represent. 



At the present time these financial propositions are 

 still merely under heated discussion. 



In actual practice the various state forest administra- 

 tions, with the exception of the Saxon one, continue to 

 rely upon the older methods in regulating the manage- 

 ment of their -forest properties without reference to 

 financial theories. This is largely due to momentum 

 of the practical existence and application of these 

 methods in earlier times and the difficidty and impracti- 

 cability of a change. In Prussia the instructions of 

 Hartig were improved upon by his successor, Oberland- 

 forstmeister von Reuss (1836), and these instructions 

 form the basis of the work of forest regulation to-day. 

 It is a periodic area allotment with only a summary 

 check by volume. The working plan is only to secure a 

 rational location and gradation of age classes; the cal- 

 .culations of j-ields and specific rules of management are 

 confined to the first period and are revised every six 

 years. 



In Saxony Cotta's area method was systematically 

 developed, and, as the larger part of Saxon forests is 

 coniferous, mainly spruce, the proper location of age 

 classes forms a special consideration for the progress of 

 fellings. The determination of volume and increment 

 was left to estimates, and the area division became en- 

 itirely superior. The original idea of Cotta that orderly 

 procedure in the management is of more importance 



