44 ECONOMICS OF FORESTRY. 



sand feet B.M. per acre, which are ordinarily har- 

 vested from these virgin woods. But this product 

 was probably ready for the axe these thousand 

 years, without increasing, the decay balancing the 

 new growth ; generations of similar large trees have 

 come to maturity, have fallen and decayed before 

 and during the one hundred and fifty years in 

 which the present crop developed. At the same 

 time, to judge from the number and character of 

 the decaying trunks which are found covering the 

 ground, these generations have not been very 

 many during the time that the present crop has 

 befen growing : the land has largely been wasted 

 in producing useless material, — brush and tree 

 weeds. 



In other words, the natural forest resource as we 

 find it consists of an accumulated wood capitalizing 

 idle and aivaiting the hand of a rational manager 

 to do its duty as a producer of a continuous highest 

 revenue. 



Such management, however, it does not receive 

 in the crude exploitations to which it is subjected 

 in all newly developed and developing countries ; 

 on the contrary, the wasteful use of the soil is only 

 intensified; for these exploitations, the operations 

 of the lumberman, consist in a mere removal of 

 the valuable portions of the growth, a cashing of 

 the accumulated wood capital, without the slightest 

 reference to future revenues which might be 

 derived from it in the shape of wood growth. In 



