IMPROVED BRITISH FORESTRY 323 
being brought under wood after agricultural or 
pastural occupation, or after having been ‘wasted’ 
and allowed to revert into wild moors or bogs, 
should be continuous year after year. Without 
continuity the best results are not obtainable, for 
the capital in timber cannot then be adjusted and 
distributed over the area to the greatest advantage. 
It is only by regular annual continuity in forming 
plantations that the requisite capital in timber 
for large woods can be gradually built up—and 
this, owing to the rapidity of growth during 
the pole-forest period of young woods in close 
canopy, at a far less actual outlay than such 
capital, when fully provided and properly dis- 
tributed, is really worth in monetary value esti- 
mated on its capacity for yielding annual returns. 
At the same time a by no means inconsiderable 
‘unearned increment’ takes place in the capital 
value of the land bearing well-managed wood- 
land crops, as the dead foliage of thick woods 
of normal density improves the land by forming 
humus or mould. This directly increases the 
productive capacity of the soil, and consequently 
raises its monetary value as judged by the prac- 
tical standard of fertility. And a fact worth 
