26 FOREST FINANCE 



b. Means or arteries of transportation and the permanency of their char- 



acter. Where the means of transportation are considered as a 

 permanent investment and not as a temporary expense to be re- 

 imbursed by current operations, a higher age of maturity results 

 naturally. 



c. In many cases the taxes per acre are not or are scarcely influenced 



by the severity of the cut. Here it is irrelevant, from the tax 

 payer's standpoint, whether he proceed to log certain sizes or kinds 

 of trees or not. Where, on the other hand, taxes are changed ac- 

 cording to the stumpage found per acre, the standing tree must be 

 charged with that much of the tax per acre as corresponds with 

 its individual contents. Take, e. g., a forest of white pine contain- 

 ing 6,000 ft. per acre consisting of 12 trees averaging 400 ft. b. 

 m., taxed at 30 cts. per acre. The soil has little value. A tree con- 



.30 X 400 



taining 400 ft.b.m. must annually defray ~.024, which 



6000 

 expense of .024 must be charged against the tree and must be de- 

 frayed from the annual increase, if any, of the value of the tree. 



d. Trees acting as mother trees propagating their kind should be credited 



with the prospective value of the progeny produced by them, on 

 an average. On the other hand, trees acting like weeds and re- 

 tarding the growth of a younger progeny of seedlings and saplings 

 beneath them must be charged with the loss of prospective incre- 

 ment incurred by such second growth. 



e. Since protective and administrative expenses are governed more by 



area than by the density of the stands, it is necessary in rare cases 

 only to charge a pro rata of the protective and administrative ex- 

 penses against the individual tree. These expenses incumber the 

 soil like prescriptive rights. 



f. The question of maturity is a question to be answered in the first 



and last instance by the owner who is governed by his personal 

 attitude regarding the rate of interest obtainable from his invest- 

 ment; by the prospects of price increment as they appear to him 

 and by personal moments like the lack of cash to defray running 

 expenses, mortgages, etc.; chance of remunerative investment 

 elsewhere; desire to distribute risks; tastes and predilections. 

 Trees of defective character infested by insects or fungi have reached 

 maturity, generally speaking, since the spread of the disease checks their 

 financial increment, and may cause the increment to be negative. 



V. — In Europe the following number of years denote, on an average, the ma- 

 turity of timber: pine 100 yrs.; spruce 90 yrs.; fir 120 yrs.; beech 120 

 yrs.; oak 160 jrrs.; oak coppice 18 yrs.; willows 1 and 2 yrs. 

 In America, naturally, fixed rotations have not been adopted, smce the 

 cutting takes place, usually, in the primeval woods. In Virginia, a second 

 and third growth of pine is cut under a rotation of about 60 years. Catalpa 



