II] FIRST PRINCIPLES 7 



Another point to be noted is that there is nothing but volun- 

 tary economic considerations by which to distinguish the wood- 

 interest from the wood-capital, because they are identical in 

 nature and are joined together. In the wood of any tree, the 

 year's accretion of new wood, and the older wood which pro- 

 duced this accretion, are exactly alike and form one piece of 

 wood. So, in the forest, there is nothing to distinguish how much 

 is capital and how much is interest, except self-imposed moral 

 considerations. 



Consequently mistakes may be made which may take a life- 

 time to correct, and the wood-capital may be drawn upon for 

 many years without any appreciable loss being felt, but at least 

 as many years will have to be spent in re-accumulating the 

 capital stock which has been wrongfully dissipated. 



From these considerations, it is seen that the time element, 

 and the largeness of the capital required to produce timber, and 

 the danger of unbalancing the systematic management by 

 liquidating a part of the capital, combine to render forestry 

 more suitable to corporate bodies, which have an interest in 

 continuity, than to private owners of limited means. 



7. The normal forest. 



In forest management the ideal condition is known as the 

 "normal" forest, and a forest is said to be "normal," when, in 

 addition to being constituted of a complete series of growths of 

 all ages from the seedling to the exploitable tree, each age-class 

 occupying an equal area, it is completely stocked, and the 

 growth is proportionate to the fertility of the soil. 



In other words, it is a forest formed of a regular succession 

 of equal areas of each age-class, from one year old up to the age 

 of the rotation adopted; it is fully stocked, and has no blanks, 

 no defects or deficiencies, and the production of wood annually 

 over every square foot of the area is the maximum quantity 

 possible under the local conditions of soil and climate. It is 

 the ideal state of perfection which is very seldom — if ever — 

 realised in practice. It will be noticed that this normal state 

 represents nothing absolute, but is merely relative to a given 

 method of treatment and a given rotation. A forest might be 



