INTRODUCTION 13 



productiveness. All open lands may be planted with 

 good species of trees; ruined stands may be cleared and 

 restocked artificially or naturally; stands containing weed- 

 trees, or overcrowded, may be thinned and their compo- 

 sition and growth improved. The measures necessary 

 to secure the maximum production may, however, involve 

 a very large investment, and one which might not yield 

 an interest return at all satisfactory to the owner. While 

 the forester aims to secure a continued high production, 

 he does not handle his forest with this alone in view, re- 

 gardless of business considerations. His design is to 

 make the forest serve the highest possible use to the 

 owner as a piece of productive property. If any land 

 is more valuable for agriculture or other purposes than 

 for producing trees, it is put to its best use. If it is best 

 suited to forest growth, the aim is to secure from it re- 

 peated crops of timber. Investments are made in forestry 

 when it can be shown that there will be adequate returns 

 in money or in some other desired form. It is a rule of 

 silviculture that no investments are made unless there 

 will be such returns. Under our present conditions it is 

 usually not possible to secure the maximum productive- 

 ness of the forest and at the same time meet the financial . as*Z 



requirements of the investment. 



How much, then, must one produce from a forest in 

 order to practise legitimate forestry? In other words, 

 what is the minimum of forest production which may be 

 established as the dividing line between forestry and 

 destructive lumbering? The simplest principle is that 



