15« VEHTFICATIOH OF T2K ANSCfAL TIELD. 



The quantity to set aside as a Reserve Fund is a matter of 

 individual appreciatioa pure and simple. The law prescribes 

 nothing with reference to it, except so far as communal iorests of 

 broad-leaved species are concfrned, in which case the quantity to 

 be reserved is one-fourth of the whole standing stock. Our owu 

 opinion is that this same proportiou should, as far as possible, be 

 maintained also in high forests, and that for this purpose the quan- 

 tity to be annually set aside should include both the annual rate 

 of growth and the 4th. part of the stock of the principal coupes, 

 regular as well as irregular.^ This latter quantity, definite and 

 exactly known as it is, is naturally meant to be exploited first in 

 case of need. The annual rate of growth, on the contrary, being 

 an uncertain quantity from the beginning, the part of the Reserve 

 Fund due to it would chiefly include growing trees or the acciden- 

 tal produce of the younger Blocks, the quantity of which is equal- 

 ly uncertain. Moreover the portion of the Reserve Fund result- 

 iflo- from the saving up of the annual increment does not necessari- 

 ly go on increasing by ihe accumulation of this increment, for a 

 portion of it naturally gets included in the valuation survey 

 of the standing stock each time the annual yield is verified. 



SECTION II. 



Verification of the Annual Yield. 



The yield of principal produce, after deducting the quantity to 

 be placed in the Reserve Fund, serves as the basis for the principal 

 fellings of the current Period. But it may happen that errors have 

 crept into the estimate of this figure or that certain discrepancies 

 are found to exist by actual experience of the cuttings ; and the 

 annual increment is, after all, always an uncertain quantity, and 

 various accidents occur during the course of a Period of any length, 

 that upset all previous calculations. It would thus be rash to go 

 on working out the same quantity year after year as that fixed at 



1. I must observe that in calculating the quantity to be reserved, no 

 allowance at all ia made for accessory or accidental produce. The result of 

 thia is that in setting aside a fourth of the total yield of principal produce, 

 a smaller quantity is reserved than if one-fourth of the whole area were so 

 set aside. And, after all, a large Reserve Fund entails no sacrifice: it is itself 

 productive, and the only difficulty in connection with it is when at the out- 

 set it has to be established. Thereafter it yields no inconsiderable amount of 

 irregular produce, variable in quantity from Period to Period. 



