EDITORIAL 



277 



younger. These stands range in age from one year to 

 the age decided upon for utilization, so that one of them 

 matures and is cut each year. Continuous logging and 

 milling operations are thus possible and no money Is 

 tied up in non-growing timber. Conversion of our 

 present virgin and irregular second-growth forests into 

 forests of this sort is, of course, not an easy task, parti- 

 cularly where present economic conditions are unfavor- 

 able, but its accomplishment is well worth the effort. 



Think for a moment what the establishment of nor- 

 mal forests, in other words the practice of forestry, 

 would mean from the accounting standpoint alone. 

 First of all it would wipe out the exinguishment charges 

 referred to by the statistical expert already quoted. No 

 lumber company that really practiced forestry would 

 ever have "to write off the cost of the plant over a period 

 of years," or any other period ; for its operations would 

 be continuous, and the only expenses of this sort that it 

 would have to meet would be for repairs and the re- 

 placement of worn-out or obsolete equipment. Secondly, 

 it would do away with the item of depletion charges, 

 since the volume of the forest would remain practically 

 constant, the amount removed each year being replaced 

 by the annual growth. And finally, the burden of carry- 

 ing charges would be removed, because the entire in- 



vestment would be in timber which was growing and 

 therefore yielding an annual return. 



The more nearly the establishment of a normal forest 

 is attained, the more nearly is the complete elimination 

 of these charges possible. Such charges are no more an 

 inevitable accompaniement of lumbering than they are of 

 farming. Yet no farmer claims that the entire cost of a 

 mowing machine must be charged against his first crop 

 of wild hay ; or that if he chooses to work his land so as 

 to ruin it in ten years the cost of land, buildings, and 

 equipment must all be written off in that period. 



The argument is frequently advanced that the practice 

 of forestry is too costly to be practicable. This Is a 

 specious fallacy which is doing much to retard the 

 progress of forest conservation. The truth is that 

 forestry, by doing away with extinguishment, depletion, 

 and carrying charges, . more than pays for the com- 

 paratively small extra costs which it involves. If the 

 lumberman, by adopting a system of accounting applic- 

 able only to a non-renewable resource can pass such 

 charges on to the consumer, it may be immaterial to him 

 whether the forest is preserved or not. But from the 

 standpoint of sound finance and the public interest, de- 

 structive lumbering is less profitable than forestry. 



AFFORESTATION IN GREAT BRITAIN 



T^HE keen interest in forestry in Great Britain which 

 -*- was aroused by the war does not seem to have 

 abated with the cessation of hostilities and the resumption 

 of wood imports from other countries. Distinct progress 

 is being made on putting into execution the ambitious 

 planting program outlined after a thorough study of the 

 situation by a reconstruction committee and later ap- 

 proved by Parliament. The Forestry Commission, which 

 was established in 1919 for the development and con- 

 servation of the timber resources of the United King- 

 dom, is reported to have planted 1,500 acres during the 

 first year of its existence and to have acquired 90,000 

 acres of land now treeless for future development and 

 afforestation. Tentative plans contemplate increasing 

 the acreage planted next year to 5,000 acres. That even 

 this is only a beginning is indicated by the fact that the 

 Commission has secured an area of more than 300 acres 

 for the growing of nursery stock on which it proposes 

 an ultimate annual production of 24,000,000 plants a year. 

 A few far-sighted individuals have for many years 

 deplored Great Britain's dependence on other countries 

 for its supply of wood and other forest products. The 

 extent of this dependence is indicated by the fact that In 

 1913, Scotland, which is more favorably situated than 

 England for the production of forest crops, imported 

 over 90 per cent of the total amount of timber consumed. 

 It took the great war, in which the destruction of ship- 

 ping by submarines so reversed the usual procedure as 



to force Great Britain to secure from eighty to ninety 

 per cent of the timber consumed from its own scanty 

 supplies, to bring the country as a whole to a realiza- 

 tion of the danger inherent in this situation. 



Now that the awakening has come the work of affores- 

 tation is being conducted with characteristic British vigor 

 and persistence. The approved program contemplates 

 the planting within 80 years of 1,770,000 acres, and 

 within the first 10 years of 200,000 acres, now treeless. 

 The conversion into coniferous timber of this area, 

 accompanied by the improved management of existing 

 forests is estimated to be- sufficient to enable Great 

 Britain to secure the great bulk of its wood require- 

 ments from home-grown timber and to be completely 

 self-supporting for a period of three years in case an- 

 other war should cut off the possibility of imports. A 

 large proportion of the afforestation work will be done in 

 Scotland, where land suitable for the purpose can be se- 

 cured at low prices. That the work will be profitable 

 from a purely financial standpoint is indicated by the 

 fact that in the Highlands of Scotland the annual re- 

 turns from forest products, after the forest is once es- 

 tablished, are estimated at 2 or more per acre, i as 

 against a present return of 7 shillings or less from graz- 

 ing an increase of some 470 per cent. 



Will the United States profit from the experience of 

 Great Britain and take prompt steps to perpetuate and 

 increase the production of its forests? 



