76 THE NEW FORESTRY. 



SECTION III. — VALUE OF THE LAND : PLANTING AS 

 AN INVESTMENT. 



On this point ,it may be stated that on private estates in 

 this country it is risky planting, for profit, land that already 

 yields a fair rent for any other purpose ; but it is difficult to 

 set any precise limit to the, value that might not be exceeded 

 by the production of timber, so much depends on culture 

 and management which may involve a difference of thousands 

 of cubic feet to the acre. There is scarcely any data on the 

 subject in British forestry records that is thoroughly reliable, 

 but it is pretty generally agreed amongst experienced men 

 that it would pay to grow timber on land, other conditions 

 being favourable, the rental value per acre of which did not 

 exceed ten shillings. An agricultural rent above this figure, 

 paid annually, and the accumulated interest on the same calcu- 

 lated for the period that a crop of timber would occupy the 

 ground, would be likely to exceed the value of the latter in the 

 end considerably. It is from poor lands of little value that (the 

 best results may be expected. The quality of the soil makes so 

 little difference to a crop of timber that we can easily conceive 

 of the latter ultimately reaching a value that would greatly 

 exceed an agricultural one for the same period. 



As regards planting, considered as an investment, pure and 

 simple, no reliable conclusions can be drawn from past experi- 

 ence, as forestry has been conducted in this country, because 

 there has been no system, and crops have been poor both in 

 quality and quantity. A mistake too frequently made, also, 

 in estimating profits from woods consists in comparing these 

 profits with that from capital otherwise and safely invested at 

 four or five per cent, compound interest for the same period. 

 No agricultural investments should be measured by that test, 

 because it is not a fair one, and few owners of estates do sink 

 their money, for long periods, in the way suggested What 

 does not go for planting is usually spent some other way on 

 the estate, and probably not so profitably as it might have been 

 in planting. The view taken by the Forestry Committee was 

 the practicability of raising the value of poor and second-rate 

 lands on estates by planting, and most sensible landowners 

 look at the subject in that light What the owner of land has 

 to consider is the value of his land before planting and its 

 probable future value under timber crops. If he can substan- 

 tially and permanently raise the value of his estate, by planting 



