FORESTS AS OBJECTS OF INDUSTRY. 17 



stock which is present at the commencement of the annual 

 growing season. 



The soil is called the fixed and the growing stock the 

 movable or shifting capital of forestry. The proportion of the 

 one to the other depends chiefly on the species, the method of 

 treatment and the length of the rotation. In forests treated as 

 coppice woods, the fixed may be greater than the movable 

 capital, but in high forests, where the object is to produce 

 timber of some size, the shifthig capital is generally of con- 

 siderably greater value than the soil. An example will illustrate 

 this : — Assuming that an area of 100 acres is treated as a Scotch 

 pine timber forest under a rotation of 100 years, with the 

 object of obtaining an annually equal return ; in that case, one 

 acre must be stocked with 1 -year-old seedlings, another with 

 2-year-old seedlings, another with 3-year-old young trees 

 and so on to the last acre which would be stocked with trees 

 100 years old. Every year the oldest wood, 100 years old, 

 is cut over and the area at once re- stocked. Immediately 

 after the cutting, 99 acres remain stocked with trees ranging 

 in age from 1 year to 99 years, and this is called the noniial 

 (jrowiiKj stock. Without the presence in the forest of this 

 series of age gradations it would be impossible to obtain a 

 regular annual yield of trees 100 years old. 



The subjoined table gives the capital invested in a forest 

 worked on the principle of a sustained annual yield. The 

 data for the growing stock are taken from the Yield Tables 

 for the Scotch pine, to be found at pages 362 — 367 of 

 Volume III. of this Manual (third edition, 1905). In calcu- 

 lating the value of the growing stock it has been assumed 

 that fagots and root wood do not yield any net money 

 return, and that the timber, including all pieces of 3 inches 

 diameter and upwards at the thin end, would realise 2 pence 

 per cubic foot under a rotation of 30 years, gradually rising to 

 10 pence per cubic foot under a rotation of 120 years. Soil 

 adapted for the growth of Scotch pine is generally light, and 

 the value of such land of the I. or best cpiality cannot, on an 



M.F. C 



