242 



Garden and Forest 



[Number 487. 



most considerate and prophetic planning. Leaving a 

 reservation alone is to encourage monotony and obliterate 

 scenery, and if there is to be any enrichment of the land- 

 scape beauty of a place there must be a programme of 

 work devised which looks specially toward the controlling 

 and directing of its vegetation. Fortunately, the two great 

 reservations, Middlesex Fells and the Blue Hills, are wild 

 picturesque lands which for the present need little more 

 than forest treatment. If the energies of the Commis- 

 sioners for a score of years to come are directed to the 

 work of restoring and improving these woods they will 

 not only be constantly increasing in beauty, but they 

 will make an object-lesson of great value to the entire 

 country. Of course, all this is to be done with intelligent 

 attention to lines of permanent roads to come and of the 

 points of view which command choice stretches of scenery. 

 This means the recognition in a broad way of all the essen- 

 tials of the landscape until more elaborate and detailed 

 plans are needed. We do not invite attention to this work 

 of the Commission because it is novel in theory, or because 

 any intelligent person will think of disputing its sound- 

 ness, but because in practice it is constantly violated, 

 greatly to the increase of the cost of constructing and 

 maintaining pleasure-grounds, and to the diminution of 

 their actual value. 



Private Forestry and State Forestry. — II. 



NOW, let us imagine that a tract of Michigan White Pine 

 forest is suddenly transported by some unknown 

 agency into the heart of Germany, say, to the neighborhood 

 of Dresden, and let us further imagine a capable, well- 

 informed forester in charge of it. What is the forester 

 likely to do with it ? Will he remove in each year from 

 the entire tract no more timber than the annual increment 

 allows, so as not to reduce the specific quantity of timber 

 which constitutes the entire growing stock ? Will he cut only 

 trees of mature age likely to die if not felled? No. The 

 forest administration would proceed in much the same way 

 of the Michigan lumberman. It would not allow a large 

 capital to lie idle, bearing very small interest, but would 

 convert the timber into money as soon as possible, estab- 

 lishing at the same time, by skillful cutting of the trees, a 

 second growth consisting of seedlings and trees of pole 

 size, the annual increment of which is sufficient to pay 

 ample interest on the capital which they represent. The 

 woods would not be entirely cleared in a single year, simply 

 because it would not pay well. The seedling growth left 

 on the ground by the method of successive cutting has a 

 value which more than covers the extra expense for suc- 

 cessive cuttings, when these are carefully made in a way 

 to avoid injuring the second growth. Of course, such 

 seedlings are not valued for the timber they actually con- 

 tain, but because they will ultimately produce timber. 

 German foresters know that a piece of woodland which in 

 twenty-five years will contain 5,000 feet, worth $30.00, is 

 now worth $8.86,* and, after harvesting that, there will be 

 another crop worth then about $8. 86, and worth now $2.62. 

 The financial principle, of course, holds good for America 

 as well as for Germany, and, if only the circumstances were 

 the same, the lumberman would do exactly as the German 

 forester does. The American lumberman, if he cut the tree 

 crop carefully, would certainly succeed in establishing a 

 second growth consisting of seedlings and small trees ; 

 from the annual increment of the second growth a reason- 

 able interest might be derived on the extra expense of 

 careful cutting and on the capital value of small trees left 

 standing. But if the lumberman succeeds in doing that he 

 is not at all sure that the second growth on a certain area 

 will develop into $30.00 worth of timber within twenty- 

 five years, and no one would give him $8.86 in exchange 

 for it, because it is much more likely that the entire second 



* These figures are merely meant (or illustration, and are not based on any actual 

 data. For the calculation compound interest at five per cent, was taken. 



growth will be eaten up by fire * than that it will reach 

 timber size within the next twenty-five years. Abroad, 

 where forest fires are practically unknown, money invested 

 in timber production is considered safer than if invested in 

 Government bonds, and for this reason three per cent, per 

 annum on the forest capital is considered an ample return. 

 In this country no one would think of investing money in 

 growing timber, because, owing to the slow growth of trees, 

 he could not net more than three per cent, per annum on his 

 capital. If tree-growing should pay under favorable cir- 

 cumstances ten per cent, or more, then the lumberman "f" 

 would be more likely to stand the risk of fires. 



If there were no fires, and therefore no danger of loss of 

 capital, the lumberman, like any other capitalist, would be 

 satisfied with comparatively low interest, and, like the 

 German forester, would provide for a future crop while 

 harvesting the present crop. In fact, there is no difference 

 between forestry and lumbering ; both try to make as 

 much money out of the wood as possible. And as long as 

 ruthless clearing pays ultimately better than any other 

 method, ruthless clearing is the course to adopt from the 

 financial standpoint of forestry. This sounds paradoxical, 

 as Americans are in the habit of considering forestry to be 

 the art of cultivating, using and preserving forests. Such an 

 art, however, is not financial forestry, but merely the de- 

 velopment of the principle of forestry under a certain set of 

 circumstances. Where cultivating, using and preserving 

 forests yields the highest money result, as it does abroad, 

 there cultivating, using and preserving forests is economic 

 forestry. Where making a clean sweep yields the highest 

 results, as it has hitherto done in the United States, there 

 making a clean sweep is economic forestry. In a very 

 densely wooded but thinly populated country far away 

 from large markets, as long as the world lasts, mere lum- 

 bering will be the consequence of the true principles of 

 forestry. In fact, in such a country ruthless lumbering and 

 forestry are identical. Mr. J. E. Defebaugh, editor of The 

 Timberman, Chicago, Illinois, in an interesting address 

 delivered before the World's Fair Congress, comes to the 

 conclusion above indicated, stating, " It is not within the 

 power of the lumberman, under present conditions, to carry 

 out any policy of forest preservation or culture." J 



Now, if the present conditions do not allow economic 

 forestry to preserve forests, and if it is, on the other hand, 

 a vital interest of the state to have the forests preserved, 

 then the conditions must be changed by the state. To 

 compel the lumberman by stringent laws to cut only 

 mature timber, to clean up the debris, to replant the areas 

 cleared, is utterly impracticable. 



The change of conditions needed is mainly protection 

 from forest fires by laws strictly enforced by the Govern- 

 ment. Protection from forest fires is the essential condi- 

 tion that renders forest preservation and forest regeneration 

 remunerative. With the certainty of their being safe from 

 fire in the future, seedlings and young trees have a value. 

 Now, if it is true that the commonwealth needs forests, 

 then the commonwealth must pay for the change of condi- 

 tions for the protection of young woods from fire. The 

 owner of the forest, when practically sure that fires will no 

 longer occur, realizes at once that a second growth left on 

 the ground has a value ; he will find out that forest preser- 

 vation and forest regeneration pays, and will therefore try 

 to preserve and regulate his woodlands. 



Reduction of taxes on second-growth woodland when 



* Besides by fire, young trees are endangered by wind, insects and fungi. How- 

 ever, checking insects and fungi is comparatively easy if the fires are stopped, and 

 wind-breaks can be lessened under proper management. 



t The term "lumberman" in the above remarks designates the forest-owner in 

 his capacity of lumberman. The lumberman who buys stumpage from the owner, 

 of course, has not the slightest interest in the preservation or regeneration of 

 forests, neither here nor abroad. 



X Mr. Defebaugh gives a financial illustration of what he thinks to be forestry. A 

 virgin forest of 100,000 acres of Pine, he assumes, under forest methods, yields 

 20,000,000 feet per year with a growing stock of 700,000,000. But such forest 

 methods are far from being economic. I would cut, say, 45,000,000 feet annually 

 during fourteen years, thus reducing the investment of capital to a minimum and 

 raising a second growth at the same time, from which, after the lapse of the four- 

 teen years, 20,000,000 feet may be cut annually. An average production of 200 feet 

 per acre per annum with White Pine, if the rotation is fifty to eighty years, is cer- 

 tainly not too high. Compare Proceedings American Forestry Ass,, vol. x., page 155. 



