REPORT OF THE STATE BOTANIST I913 49 



the amount of the original investment, and figuring at 6 per cent 

 compound interest and including also taxation and protection, one 

 can imagine that at the end of 120 years the value of the Scotch 

 pine produced will scarcely yield a profitable return upon the in- 

 vestment, not even with the present high value of timber in Germany. 



As the oberforster, however, is required by regulation to replant, 

 the net planting expense of $36 is charged by him to the logging 

 expense of the last rotation and the new growth starts with a clean 

 bill of health, financially. It is burdened with only the soil value, 

 taxation and protection expense upon the books ; and the deduction 

 of $36 from the receipts of the sale of timber does not seriously 

 effect the profitable appearance of the forest accounts. In other 

 words, the unique thing about this range is that merely by the 

 method of bookkeeping the forest investment represented at Eber- 

 stadt is a profitable one instead of a loss, and the planting expense 

 does not hang with its accruing interest as a burden upon the finan- 

 cial success of the next rotation, to be eliminated, possibly, only 

 by the first or second thinnings. 



Because of the abundance of rabbits and deer, all the young 

 plantations must be fenced. Woven wire fences are necessary, for 

 which the annual expense on this range of 2500 acres is $500, but 

 the item does not appear in the planting expense. There is an 

 annual revenue from hunting privileges of $2000, and here again 

 the oberforster shows his keen business ability in keeping down the 

 value of the investment by charging this fencing expense to the 

 revenues received from hunting privileges, rather than to the cost 

 of reforestation. As a result of all this the range yields an annual 

 net revenue of something over 3 per cent. It must be borne in 

 mind, however, that the gross receipts are very large and that the 

 cause of the low net revenue which prevails in practically all German 

 forests (rarely rising to 6 per cent) is due to the relatively high 

 valuation placed upon the soil in estimating the value of the invest- 

 ment. 



2 THE PINERIES OF YSENBURG 



Ysenburg is situated on the level, sandy plain of the Rhine valley, 

 a few miles south of Frankfurt. Three or four centuries ago the 

 holdings of the princes of Ysenburg constituted one of the hundreds 

 of small principalities of the old German empire. Napoleon re- 

 duced these to but a few in number and the Landgraf (now Gross- 

 herzog or Grand Duke) of Hesse-Darmstadt received dominion over 

 Ysenburg. The princes, however, retained their land, if not their 



