Il6 ECONOMICS OF FORESTRY. 



owner. While the small farm, owing to the possi- 

 bility of increasing returns to increased labor, and 

 hence a relatively large return per acre, can exist, — 

 the small farm earning per acre as much as the 

 large one, or more, — the small wood-lot cannot exist 

 as a separate business proposition ; only as attached 

 to a farm or other business can it have economic 

 justification, but, as we will see later, it is even then 

 at a disadvantage from mere silvicultural points of 

 view. 



The indirect employment of labor to which for- 

 est products give rise in transportation and final 

 shaping and use of the wood material is probably 

 greater than with farm crops. 



We referred just now to the amount of labor 

 earnings of $3 which each acre of forest pro- 

 duces in woodworking establishments in Prussia. 

 In our own country the forest products annually 

 consumed involve the moving over shorter or 

 longer distances of not less than 500,000,000 tons, 

 or, if we only refer to the lumber product, at least 

 100,000,000 tons must be handled to and from the 

 mill and yard, which, if the average haul were not 

 over 100 miles, may readily involve a cost of 

 ^150,000,000 to ;^2O0,ooo,ooo, while ^300,000,000 

 is about the amount of wages paid to the 500,000 

 employees occupied in transforming the raw forest 

 product into articles of trade, and ;^ 100,000,000 

 to the loggers and mill men. With these and 

 other figures (see Appendix) we come to an esti- 



