246 PRINCIPLES OF AMERICAN FORESTRY. 



liable to blow down when thinned, it might be better to 

 cut clean, and keep the trees in even-age groups. In this 

 latter case the tract should be divided into as many 

 parts as there are years in the rotation, and the timber 

 from one part cut each year. This would mean the plant- 

 ing or seeding of a like amount each year. 



Capital Growing Stock. This represents the actual 

 amount of trees on the land which is producing wood 

 growth of value. The nearer this approaches to the 

 normal growing stock the better the condition of the 

 forest and the larger its returns. 



Actual Income represents the annual return which a 

 given forest tract is producing. 



Increasing Value of Forests. In countries where 

 forestry has reached a high degree of development a 

 piece of land is regarded as being in forest as soon as 

 it is stocked with trees, even if the -seedlings are not yet 

 over two inches high and are hardly to be seen at a short 

 distance. Such a piece of land should have increased 

 value and should be regarded as earning a rate of inter- 

 est. It is so regarded in many of the European states, 

 and money lenders there consider this matter as impor- 

 tant when placing a loan; for while the increase on such 

 land cannot be gathered at all for perhaps sixteen or 

 twenty years, and then only a small amount, yet a cer- 

 tain increase in woody tissue is being stored up each 

 year which will later on be harvested. It should be 

 regarded as being worth at any time a certain proportion 

 of its total value at maturity, which perhaps will not 

 come for twenty ycars ; but if a forest is reasonably pro- 

 tected from fire, it is almost as sure to earn a certain 

 increment as that the conditions on the earth will remain 

 as they are for eighty years. And if a forest is twenty 

 years old, it may be in such condition that it would be 

 wasteful to try to derive any income from it for perhaps 



