58 FOEBST PLAKTINQ. 



4. — The principle of the largest pecuniary returns, or 

 of the financially most profitable cutting periods. — By 

 this principle the trees are cut at the time when the 

 largest soil rent of the invested capital will be earned, 

 taking into account compound interest, every expense, 

 rent of lands, etc. 



Professor Pressler, at Tharand, in the Kingdom of 

 Saxony, more than twenty-five years ago claimed that 

 this principle was the only safe basis upon which the 

 management of forests should be conducted, and now all 

 the leading experts in forest-matters agree with him, 

 because experience has confirmed the correctness of a 

 system which answers all demands made upon forests, 

 both for preservation and profit. 



A great many changes in the time-honored manage- 

 ment of the European forests have been caused by the 

 strict enforcement of this doctrine, the most important of 

 which are the following : 



(a) The development of trees, till they have formed 

 the maximum quantity of wood, formerly necessitated with 

 Beeches, Oaks and other sorts of hard wood a rotation of 

 about 340 years, and with Evergreens a rotation of 120 

 years. This has been entirely changed, and now ro- 

 tations of scarcely half that time are in use, viz : for 

 Evergreens, from 50 to 60 years, and for Oaks, Beeches, 

 etc., from 70 to 80. This change was brought about by 

 the consideration that the capital invested in forest ex- 

 ploitations increased, during the second part of the 

 long rotations by the accumulation of accrued interest so 

 rapidly, that in counting up the items of the debit ac- 

 count and credit account, the business proved a losing 

 one. For instance : the product of a one- hundred-and- 

 twenty-years-old Oak forest nets the sum of X. Were 

 the forest permitted to continue its growth during 

 another one hundred and twenty years, the amount of 

 wood produced during this second period would not be 



