INVESTMENTS AND COSTS IN FOREST PRODUCTION 8l 



107. Costs of Forestry Compared with Destructive Lum- 

 bering. Owners of timberlands have the choice of two lines 

 of policy. They may desire to retain the lands only until the 

 timber is removed, when every effort will be made to sell or 

 dispose of them. Or they may plan to hold these lands indefi- 

 nitely, with the intention of producing or securing a new growth 

 of trees. The former policy is usually accompanied by destruc- 

 tive lumbering, so termed because the purpose of the operation 

 is to remove every tree of merchantable value, at the same time 

 undertaking no measures to reproduce or perpetuate the forest. 



The financial distinction between these two policies lies in 

 the character of the investment required for forestry. Destruc- 

 tive lumbering squeezes the last cent of capital from the forest, 

 wrecking it as a productive enterprise, and converting it into 

 money profits. In this process, the cost of transportation is 

 reduced to a minimum by use of temporary structures and com- 

 plete removal of the timber, by elimination of all care in felling 

 and skidding needed in preventing injury to young timber, and 

 by neglect of the fire trap caused by the slash, and abandonment 

 of the land to promiscuous broadcast burning. Under such 

 conditions, stumpage brings its highest prices and the profits to 

 logger and owner are greatest in amount. But there they cease. 



In any other form of business, similar results may be obtained 

 should the owner close out the enterprise by the sale, not only 

 of the net product, but of his reserve stock, fixtures and capital 

 assets. The profits obtained on stumpage under destructive 

 lumbering are higher than the business of forest production 

 can earn or is entitled to, and the entire structure of lumbering 

 as it is carried on to-day will crumble away with the exhaustion 

 of the raw materials, having converted the chief asset, produc- 

 tiveness of forest lands, into money. 



The investment which forestry may require, and which de- 

 structive lumbering avoids, consists of 



Additional cost of transportation in logging. 



Additional felling and skidding costs. 



Brush disposal. 



Cost of seed trees. 



