FORESTRY COMMISSIONER 



41 



Third and fourth rate land can be bought for $1.50 per 

 acre, but as the State holds some land only fit for forest 

 the minimum price of which is $5.00 per acre, there should 

 be authority to pay that when necessary. 



The German yield tables show that an acre of third or 

 fourth rate land planted as part of a forest with pine on 

 forestry principles — two or three year old seedlings five 

 feet apart — will in eighty years produce 18,000 feet of tim- 

 ber, board measure. I say eighty years, because on an 

 average pine does its fastest growing in that period. It 

 grows after that, but not at a rate to earn good interest on 

 the capital it represents. Forestry always looks to getting 

 good revenue. 



Experience shows that the State can plant forest at 

 about 16.00 per acre, exclusive of cost of land. If the 

 State had 37,500 acres of third or fourth rate land to 

 plant with forest we would find that 5 per cent of it was 

 already well stocked with pine or some other valuable 

 timber, and that another 5 per cent of the area was rock 

 or water, which we would call blank spaces; deducting 

 this 10 per cent from 37,500 would leave 33,750 acres to 

 be actually planted. 



The three-tenths of a mill levy will yield about 1300,000 

 annually, but if adopted it will be five years before any 

 money will be available. In the course of ten years the 

 State would be able to annually acquire and plant 37, 500 

 acres, not in one body but in scattered localities. Then 

 in eighty years the state would own three million acres of 

 normal forest from which 675,000,000 feet board measure 

 of timber could annually be cut perpetually. It would be 

 worth 1200,000,000, yielding a net revenue of 3 per cent; 

 giving steady employment to 50,000 workmen, besides 

 those in mills and shops, and affording other benefits, 



