64 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



not far from 20 inches. The average tree will contain at 

 least 65 cubic feet of wood, or say 10,000 cubic feet per 

 acre, of a character which, with common mill practice, will 

 make 50,000 feet of good boards, besides 25 cords of fire- 

 wood . * 



Who knows what the stumpage of. the lumber product 

 alone will be worth sixty j^ears hence? We can only guess, 

 but we have good basis for guessing. In sixty years, as far 

 as lumber prices are concerned, we will be at least in the 

 same condition as the P]uropean countries, which have "no 

 surplus " of virgin wood supplies ; prices will be at least what 

 they are now in France or Switzerland or Germany. This 

 year stumpage prices of spruce and fii', actually obtained in 

 France, were 12 and 13 cents per cubic foot as standing in 

 the trees, including both saw timber and firewood. At this 

 rate our acre would be worth 1 1,200. In Switzerland, white 

 pine stumpage was sold this year at 17 cents per cubic foot 

 for the saw timber alone, and spruce and fir at 12^/2 to 18 

 cents, according to sizes and transportation facilities. This 

 would make our acre worth at the lowest $750 for the saw 

 timber alone. Or, if we apply the experience of Prussia 

 through sixty-five years of the last century, when the price 

 for wood in general rose at the average rate of 1^^ per cent 

 per annum, and assume the present stumpage price at $5 only, 

 the acre would have brought 12 x 50 = $600, which is about 

 7 per cent on the original investment. Now, money by that 

 time will certainly not be worth more than 2 or 3 per cent ; 

 hence, if we discount to the present time at 3 per cent, we 

 find that the $10 now paid out will be repaid ten to twenty 

 times over, with interest. 



How does this compare with the encouragement of the tax 



* These trees have not developed like the average of the iinattended forest, 

 but they are the select best, which for thirty years have been kept in most 

 favorable condition. Such trees, as shown by measurements (see "The white 

 pine," Bulletin No. 22, Forestry Division, United States Department of Agri- 

 culture), can attain in sixty to sixty-five years, without any attention, in natu- 

 rally grown groves, dimensions of 23 inches diameter and 80 feet in height, and 

 averages of 18 iiiclies diameter witli G2 cubic feet contents. If only 48 feet of 

 the length with 8 inches at the smallest diameter, i.e., 60 per cent of the cubic 

 contents, are taken for saw timber, then, in common mill practice, counting on 

 30 per cent waste in slabs and kerf, each such average tree will give over 400 

 feet B. M., and the acre 60,000 feet, besides some 20 cords of fuel wood. 



