I98 REPORT OF THE FOREST, FISH AND GAME COMMISSION. 



A net revenue of three per cent may be considered a low rate of interest, but 

 one should bear in mind that the state must have wood; that the forest occupies 

 non-agricultural land; that the investment is continuous; and that the risk is not 

 great. Relative to this question is also the fact that in Germany the state is 

 considered under moral obligation to furnish employment to its citizens. "About 

 $40,000,000 is paid every year in Germany for the creation and preservation of 

 forests; 200,000 families are supported from them, while something like 3,000,000 

 persons find employment in the various wood industries of the empire. The total 

 revenue from the forests amounts to $14,500,000, and the current expenses, 

 $8,500,000."* 



Where the market conditions are very favorable, the net revenue may be con- 

 siderably greater than that indicated by the table. The canton of Zurich in 

 Switzerland gives a net receipt per annum of 91.06 francs per hectare of forest, 

 which is equivalent to $7.28 per acre. About half of this comes from the sale of 

 brush and small wood from thinnings. 



Fore^fr^ Pro^pecf^ in America. 



That America will be compelled to practice forestry very extensively is self- 

 evident. It will be a long time, however, before the results will be as satisfactory 

 as they are in Europe. The factors upon which the growth of trees depend are 

 about the same here as there. Other conditions, however, are widely different. 

 There, the forests are comparatively small, broken, densely populated, and the 

 roads are fine. Our forests are very large, compact, without population, and 

 without roads. There, wages are very low and the market for wood is high ; here, 

 wages are high and the market for wood is low. There, the limbs, tops and brush- 

 wood are all utilized; here, they are practically without market value. There, the 

 woods are clean and free from the danger of fire; here, the woods are a veritable 

 fire-trap. Not only are the tops and limbs left in the forest here, but they are 

 thrown into heaps as if the woods were made ready to be burned. There, since 

 the woods are clean, the conditions for the spread of insects and fungi are reduced; 

 here, the abundance of rotting wood in the forest offers to the insects good breeding- 

 places, and to the fungi favorable conditions for their growth. 



In America there are also certain notions of government which will hinder 

 the achievement of results such as have crowned the efforts of European foresters. 

 In Europe it is held that the forests are all national property; not state forests 



* Garden and Forest, November, 1892, p. 576. 



