196 CALCULATIONS OF COST OF PINE: SUGGESTIONS. 



public property, and although shorn of their valne for the time being, 

 •u-ould slowly recover their former condition, and as prices advanced 

 would share in the profits of enhanced value. 



It is obvious that such a system of leasing and supervision can best 

 be managed in bodies of timber of considerable extent, rather than in 

 detached parcels. It would be impossible to suggest the location or ex- 

 tent of timber-lands that should be reserved without knowing the pres- 

 ent state of sales and grants, and the condition of the remaining public 

 lands. The changes that may have occurred since former surveys would 

 render any dependence upon returns then made, often quite uncertain at 

 the present time, and the probability would be that at any sale made 

 upon previous notice, but without recent exploration, the purchasers 

 would know more as to the condition of the land sold than the govern- 

 ment itself with the original field-notes as its guide, and that the advan- 

 tage would mostly be on the side of the former. 



CALCULATIONS OF COST OF GROWING PINE TIMBER — SUGGESTION OF 

 A BILL BY THE HON. C. C. ANDREWS, MINISTER FROM THE UNITED 

 STATES TO SWEDEN, CONCERNING CERTAIN STIPULATIONS THAT 

 SHOULD BE MADE IN THE SALE OF PINE LANDS.^ 



Mr. Somson, a highly intelligent Norwegian gentleman, who has made a large for- 

 tune in the timber trade, informed me some time ago that, according to a calculation 

 which he had made, pine and spruce timber actually costs and is worth miich more 

 than the price at which it is sold. His theory is, that an acre of grown timber is 

 worth the sum that the lowest or nominal price of wild land — say $1 an acre — would 

 amount to as an invested capital, drawing, interest at the expiration of the period re- 

 quired for timber to develop. In the report on Swedish forest culture, accompanying 

 my No. 166," it was shown that in the northerly parts of Sweden, two hundred years, 

 — and on poorer soils three hundred years, are required for the pine to grow to good 

 timber. In the south part of the country one hundred years are sufficient. It may be 

 assumed that one hundred and eighty years are required for the growth of pine tim- 

 ber in the northwest part of the United States. Now, $1 invested at 5 per cent, interest 

 per annum will double, say, in twenty years. In forty years it will be $4 ; in sixty 

 years, $8 ; in eighty years, $16 ; in one hundred years, $32 ; in one hundred and twenty 

 years, $64 ; in one hundred and forty years, $128 ; and in one hundred and sixty years, 

 $256. If a thing is worth what under favorable circumstances it costs to produce it, 

 then this last-mentioned sum of $256 represents the valne of an acre of lajid, originally 

 boufiht at $1, at the time pine timber will have come to maturity upon it, and this 

 without including the charges of taxes on the land. These figures would seem to show 

 that the pine forests of the United States are being, or have been, sold and consumed 

 at a price very much below their actual value. 



In years past vast quantities of pine timber in the northwest part of the United 

 States have been stolen from the government, and at the very time the latter was em- 

 ploying agents to guard it. In very many instances, after the timber has been stolen, 

 innocent parties, supposing from the official maps that the land was timbered land, 

 have purchased it of the United States at private entry, at $1.25 per acre. Interest on 

 the purchase money and taxes have in the course of twenty years made such lands cost 

 the owners from $;i to $4 per acre, and yet the land would not now bring 50 cents per 

 aero. Many a man has been kept poor i^aying taxes on such laud. Again timber- 

 lauds have been sold oft" in so large quantities and so rapidly as to glut the timber 

 mai-ket. 



But a more important fact still is that no means have been taken to promote re- 

 growth. Where hard-wood timber is cut there is always a chance for regrowth by 

 sprouts from the stumps and roots, but with pine and spruce it is otherwise ; and where 

 closely growing forests of pine and spruce are cleared without leaving seed trees, the 

 land may remain forever a waste, growing every year more barren. 



In the report above referred to it was shown, tliat the practice in Sweden when cut- 

 ting pine timber is to leave six to seven seed trees to about each quarter of an acre' 

 AftL-r five or six years the seed trees may be cut. 



With the hope of at least contributing a little to the agitation of this important 

 subject, I venture to inclose a bill for an act to promote regrowth of pine timber. 



•Tliis pnpei' was rrausiiiitted to the Department of State from Stockholm, Septem- 

 ber 21, ltt74, and a copy has been furnished from that office for use in this report. 

 'ForeUju lielatioiis of the United States, 1872, p. 641. 



