BY PUBLIC AUCTION. 455 



produce is advantageous in many ways. Royalties are the 

 best means of deciding the acceptance of offers to purchase 

 wood, or when to knock-down lots to bidders at public auctions; 

 they afford a means of estimating the value of stolen produce ; 

 they are indispensable in every kind of forest valuation, and 

 in calculating the value of forest rights, damage, sale of forest 

 land, or other similar questions, and finally in calculating 

 budget-estimates and other statements. 



Royalties are evidently useful only when they represent the 

 actual momentary local value of wood, i.e., its average market 

 price for the time being. Unless this can be affirmed of them 

 they are absolutely worthless. It must not, however, be for- 

 gotten, that royalties also possess the character of prices fixed 

 by authority, and thus often exercise an influence on market- 

 prices which is not always justifiable. 



(b) Sale to the highest Bidder. 



The next mode of sale to be discussed, is when a purchaser 

 offers his wares for sale to the highest bidder in the presence 

 of a larger or smaller number of purchasers. The characteristics 

 of this method are, that the price is fixed by the purchasers, 

 and the wares, i.e., the forest produce, is divided among the 

 consumers according to their own requirements and without 

 direct interference on the part of the forest owner. 



Sale to the highest bidder may be effected by public auction 

 or sealed tender. 



i. Sale hi) Public Auction. 



(a) General Account. — Public auction-sales may be conducted 

 either by the purchasers out-bidding one another, or by putting 

 up each sale-lot at a prohibitively high figure, a public crier 

 then calling-out at regular intervals successive reductions by a 

 fixed sum of this figure for any lot, until one of the purchasers 

 signifies his acceptance of the lot at the last figure proclaimed 

 by the crier. This latter mode of sale is termed a Dutch auction, 

 and in case two or more purchasers accept a lot simultaneously, 

 it is put-up for sale to the highest bidder among them. 



Sale by successively increased bids is the common mode of 

 auction- sale in Britain, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Switzer- 



