FINANCIAL ASPECTS OF AFFORESTATION 217 



to supply a saw-mill working steadily throughout the year 

 may be defined as a suitable minimum. When of this 

 nature, the timber can be turned to the best account, 

 whether sold to a timber merchant to work up himself, 

 or sawn up by the forest staff, and sold in a converted 

 state. Carriage of timber in the roimd, as is inevitable 

 when small quantities are sold at one time, invariably 

 means reduced prices, and accounts for the difficulty of 

 selling small lots of timber in isolated places at anything 

 like a satisfactory price. With an annual output of 

 30,000 to 40,000 cubic feet per annum, a mill worked by 

 steam or water power, and running two circular saws, can 

 be kept going, and under these conditions, profit is more 

 likely to follow the working of an area of moderate 

 size than when the latter is either too small or too 

 large. 



Next to the actual size of the area, the productive 

 capacity of the soil and the annual profit obtainable 

 remain to be dealt with. The usual method of calculat- 

 ing the expenditure and returns on forest areas is to 

 take the acre as the unit of surface, and by calculat- 

 ing the cost of planting on the one hand, and the 

 volume and value of timber produced on the other, 

 getting out the nett profit at the end of the rotation. 

 The mere fact, however, that timber of a certain value 

 has been produced on an acre, or on a few acres of a par- 

 ticular block, affords little or no evidence as to the yield 

 and possibilities of the latter, unless the sample represents 

 a fair average of the bulk. On certain types of land of a 

 uniform nature it is not difficult to judge whether this is 

 so or not. With irregular soils and constantly changing 

 situations it is, however, practically impossible to judge 

 how far the results obtained from a small section of a 

 wood are typical of those obtainable from the whole. 

 Another practical difficulty in estimating returns is found 



