FINANCIAL ASPECTS OF AFFORESTATION 221 



The cost of plants and planting is the most serious 

 outlay in the formation of a forest area. It not only 

 means a heavy annual expenditure for a series of years, 

 but the crops resulting from that expenditure are liable 

 to be damaged or partially destroyed by climatic or 

 parasitic agencies, which may render one or more years' 

 expenditure of little benefit. With small woods the work 

 of planting is often carried out in one season, or at the 

 most in two or three years. With an area which is 

 intended to yield a steady income after a period of years, 

 however, it is evident that the work of planting should 

 roughly be spread over the period which is required for 

 the earliest planted area to mature, otherwise a break 

 will occur at some future period, or crops must be cut 

 before they are ripe. In the planting of an entirely new 

 woodland the rate of stocking need not be quite so gradual 

 or methodical, as allowance must be made for uncertainties 

 and variations in the development of the trees, which 

 prevent rotations being fixed far in advance. In estimates, 

 however, the normal state of things must be allowed for, 

 viz., the planting of an area which corresponds to the 

 annual felling when the wood is in full bearing, and this 

 is or should be that fraction of the total, or the sum 

 of the fractions of each working circle, which corresponds 

 to the years in the rotation or rotations. 



Calculated per acre, the cost of planting on a large and 

 systematic scale may be estimated at £4 to £6, according 

 to character of ground, species, and ages of plants. 

 Ground with thick surface growth, planted with rare and 

 expensive species, and with four-year-old plants, will cost 

 on an average at least £8 or £10 per acre. Cheap seed- 

 lings notched into short heather may not cost more than 

 £3. But usually the expenses of planting lie between 

 these extremes. Of the total cost of planting, plants alone 

 usually cost two-thirds and labour one-third, but nuich 



