FOREST FIRES 1 53 



growth seldom has any market value until of lumber, or at least 

 of cordwood size, it has been quite common to overlook these 

 more serious forms of damage in appraising the results of a fire. 

 Neither is it an easy matter to determine the damage to young 

 growth and soil. The only just method of determining this 

 damage is to estimate, (a) what the forest would have been 

 worth after a given length of time if not burned, and (b) what it 

 will be worth in that same time now that it has been burned, and 

 deduct the latter from the former. The result is the amount of 

 damage at the end of this period caused by the present fire. In 

 order to determine the present value of this damage it is neces- 

 sary to discount the amount to the present time, at the same 

 rate of interest as the forest is yielding on the capital invested. 

 To illustrate: 



Suppose on a tract of twenty acres of spruce burned over this 

 year, 200,000 feet of lumber were destroyed worth $7 per M. 

 The damage to timber Is $1400. If it is estimated that the 

 young growth would have produced 200,000 feet more in thirty 

 years without the fire and will now not produce over 30,000 feet 

 in that time; and it is estimated that stumpage will be worth 

 $10 per M. in tliirty years, the damage at the end of the period 

 would be equivalent to 170,000 feet at $10 = $1700. From 

 tables of interest it is found that the present value of $1700 

 discounted at five per cent for thirty years is $390. Therefore 

 the total present damage is $1400 + $390 = $1790. To execute 

 the field work necessary for an estimate of this sort of the 

 damages done by fire the chapter on timber estimating must 

 be understood. As a rule our New England fires do not destroy 

 the trees, so it is possible after a fire to estimate the amount of 

 lumber killed just as live timber is estimated. To determine the 

 damage to reproduction is somewhat more difficult, depending 

 on whether the young seedlings are wholly destroyed or simply 

 killed. If they are still present it is possible to estimate the 

 percentage of the area which was stocked. If they have been 

 destroyed it will be necessary to judge the former condition of 

 the reproduction by that on similar adjoining tracts which have 



