THE APPRAISAL OF DAMAGES 127 



The effect of this omission is to decrease the damages demanded. 

 The cost C is included except when natural reproduction is 

 sure to occur. In this case, C may be omitted, and the damages 

 would then amount merely to the annual expenses 



E(i.op a - i). 



In ordinary cases, the entire annual charges, including admin- 

 istration, taxes and upkeep, would constitute the cost. But in 

 national forests, administration expenses are frequently offset 

 by revenues from grazing, while taxes are not paid. The item 

 e may then include only the cost of fire protection. The rate 

 of interest adopted in government forestry is seldom over 3 

 per cent. For these reasons, damages based on cost for private 

 forests usually exceed those claimed for government timber of 

 the same quality. 



Excessive costs of replacement are sometimes demanded on 

 the basis that the trees burned should be physically replaced 

 with others of like size. An owner who has a young grove 

 destroyed feels that the small value represented by the cost of 

 growing the trees does not compensate him for the loss of the 

 grove. His trees are gone and he will have to wait an equal 

 period for a new plantation to attain like size. If repeatedly 

 burned, he would never secure his grove. The excess value 

 indicated in such a case actually exists, both as sentiment on 

 the part of the owner and as an addition to the value of the 

 entire property ( 1336). Neither of these elements are best 

 valued by attempting to estimate the cost of immediate physical 

 restoration of the property, but are discussed under other head- 

 ings ( 138 and 147). 



With increasing age of the timber, the relative merits of cost 

 as a basis, compared with value, become less and less. Wherever 

 there is a marked divergence in the two, whether cost exceeds 

 or is less than value, the collection of damages based on cost 

 cannot be justified by any principle of law. Its use is clearly 

 a make-shift and will be confined to young timber whose age 

 does not exceed one-half the period required to bring the trees 

 to maturity. 



