256 OUR FORESTS AND WOODLANDS 



producing an income, subject to the same prin- 

 ciples as to management. Each of these three 

 possible systems of treating woodland crops re- 

 presents an investment of capital with regard 

 to the growing stock, in addition to the capital 

 value of the land ; but there are, of course, 

 very wide variations between the capital re- 

 quired, say, for osier-holts maturing in from 

 three to five years and then producing a crop 

 capable of being harvested annually, and high- 

 woods of conifers or of oak and other hard- 

 woods, which only attain their full financial 

 maturity at ages varying from about seventy 

 to considerably over a hundred years of age. 

 In this latter case it must always happen that 

 the capital represented by the standing crops 

 of timber exceeds considerably, in actual mone- 

 tary worth, the freehold value of the land. 

 But, under all the three systems of forest 

 management there is and, from the very 

 nature of the investment, it is self-evident that 

 there must be a certain very close relation 

 between the capital in wood-crops which ought 

 to be on the ground, so as to utilise and at 

 the same time safeguard the productiveness of 



