FORESTS OF ALSACE-LORRAINE 



499 



cost 3 of logging to point of sale was $591,738 and the gross receipts $2,232,480. This 

 signifies that stumpage secured almost three-fourths the value of the delivered log or cord 

 excluding overhead. 



The total net receipts from State forests (and State forests held in undivided owner- 

 ship) was $1,175,764 or $7.78 per acre forested; in 1913 the net total was $1,186,626, 

 and the net per acre $7.65 or 13 cents less than in 1873. In 1918 the receipts had 

 almost doubled owing to war inflation. The revenue has been constant except in 1892 

 and 1902 when there were losses from windfall due to an overstocked market and con- 

 sequent low prices. There are no reliable data on the returns from private forests. 



Stumpage Prices. Stumpage prices have fluctuated with the economic conditions, 

 since forestry is a key industry in Alsace-Lorraine. The prices in 1913 and 1919 for the 

 different classes of product are of interest: 



For 52.5-foot trees, 6.7 inches at small end outside bark, these prices (for class 3) are 

 equivalent to about $19 a thousand board feet in the log along the roads and $33 in 

 early 1919. This means about $14 and $24 on the stump for medium-sized trees in 1913 

 and 1919. It should be noted that the inflation was much greater in France, for just 

 across the border at St. Die the last auctions of 1918 yielded about $47 per thousand 

 board feet for good fir on the stump, or almost double the price in Alsace-Lorraine. 



Miscellaneous Data. From 1907 to 1917, 304,895 acres of the State forests 

 (about five-sixths of the total) were valued by the German service and totaled with the 

 actual growing stock, $78,735,237, or about $254.37 per acre. Taking five-sixths of the 

 net revenue of $7.65 per acre this means a return of 2 per cent on the assessed capital 

 invested. But Lafosse estimates that France secures State forests with a round total 

 sale value of 154 million dollars and that the return on this higher valuation has been 

 only 1.26 per cent "a low return." For all public forests the "coefficient of exploita- 

 tion . . . was about 50 per cent " . . . but almost $96,500 was spent annually 

 on road and railroad development. The building of Government forest railroads has 

 proven especially profitable. For example, the Abreschwiller paid for itself in 6 years 

 through higher prices for the timber and cordwood. The Germans put 4.7 per cent of 

 the total money spent each year into planting and sowing; this amounted (for the State 

 forest area) to $4.87 per acre for sowing labor and $7.65 per acre for planting labor. 

 The planting stock averaged $3.17 per thousand transplants, which is certainly not a 

 high cost compared with the costs on National Forests in the United States. 



Wood Industries. The chief wood industries are: Sawmills, furniture, flooring, 

 wooden shoes, implement handles, shoe trees, vehicle bodies, billiard tables, etc. 



In 1907 Alsace-Lorraine imported 50,000 tons (a deficit of about one-twentieth the 

 total production) of wood products mostly from Austria, Sweden, and the Rhine "Pala- 



3 The normal value of the mark 23.8 cents was used in converting marks to dollars. 



