



s 







FACTORS OF FOREST PRODUCTION. 135 



superior size not cordwood) had increased from 14 

 cubic feet to 54 cubic feet per acre or nearly 300 

 per cent, and at the same time the wood capital had 

 increased nearly 25 per cent. While the net in- 

 come during the earlier period, when wood was 

 worth 5.6 cents per cubic foot, amounted to $1.12 

 per acre, in 1893 the price had risen to 9.9 cents, 

 or 76 per cent, but the net income had risen 

 nearly 300 per cent, namely, to $4.37 for every 

 acre of the property, while the expenditures had 

 been more than doubled. 



When it is considered that Saxony has taken in 

 about $200,000,000 during the last fifty years from 

 a small area of rough mountain land, a tract half 

 the size of many a county in the United States, 

 and that without diminishing, but rather increasing, 

 its earning power, the advantage of a careful treat- 

 ment of forest areas, at least to the state, the com- 

 munity, must be apparent. 



Considering the net income as the interest of 

 the value of the forest lands at a 3 per cent interest 

 rate, it appears that, meanwhile, the capital value 

 of these lands has increased from $100 to $150, 

 whereas their deforestation would quickly convert 

 them into poor alpine pastures, which would bank- 

 rupt their owners at $10 per acre. 



To the uninitiated an interest rate of 5 per cent, 

 which the appreciation of the investment and the 

 continued revenue of 3 per cent represents, would 

 appear unattractive; but when the conditions under 



