256 OUR FORESTS AND WOODLANDS 
producing an income, subject to the same prin- 
ciples as to management. Each of these three 
possible systems of treating woodland crops re- 
presents an investment of capital with regard 
to the growing stock, in addition to the capital 
value of the land; but there are, of course, 
very wide variations between the capital re- 
quired, say, for osier-holts maturing in from 
three to five years and then producing a crop 
capable of being harvested annually, and high- 
woods of conifers or of oak and other hard- 
woods, which only attain their full financial 
maturity at ages varying from about seventy 
to considerably over a hundred years of age. 
In this latter case it must always happen that 
the capital represented by the standing crops 
of timber exceeds considerably, in actual mone- 
tary worth, the freehold value of the land. 
But, under all the three systems of forest 
management there is — and, from the very 
nature of the investment, it is self-evident that 
there must be—a certain very close relation 
between the capital in wood-crops which ought 
to be on the ground, so as to utilise and at 
the same time safeguard the productiveness of 
