FISHERIES, GAME AND FORESTS. 365 



harvest annually only that which does or ought to grow annually, at the same time 

 reducing or increasing the cut, if the capital is deficient or excessive. This is called 

 "sustained-yield management." 



To apply this principle — perfectly proper for the settled conditions in the 

 artificially reproduced German woods — to our decrepit Adirondack woods would 

 mean lack of judgment as to the conditions under which it is to be applied. Meas- 

 urements and calculations upon the basis of which the cutting is to proceed, while 

 they have the appearance of a highly scientific foundation, are for our virgin woods 

 really most insecure. Even the Germans, after a hundred years of attempt to 

 determine, with a measurable degree of accuracy, the contents and the rate of growth 

 of a selection forest — i.e., a forest in which old and young trees of all ages and various 

 species are mixed — have come to the conclusion that it is impracticable, and that a 

 guess is almost as safe as the elaborate calculations. 



The fine measurements, then, in our wild woods, which are made to establish 

 so-called "yield tables" while no doubt of scientific interest would be most unsafe to 

 base upon financial calculations, investments and practical management. 



Moreover, the measurers have overlooked that in our woods which are run over 

 again and again by fires, there is about as much dccretion as there is accretion, and this 

 decretion by decay in the heart withdraws itself from measurement. 



But it takes no fine calculations, only common observation, to ascertain that our 

 old timber is past its prime, and has been financially ripe for harvest, i. e., growing no 

 interest, for many years. Hence the proper policy is that stated at the outset : to 

 replace as quickly as economic conditions warrant, the old crop by a new. How fast 

 or how slowly this may be done depends upon the conditions in each case, and cannot 

 rationally be determined by such a general rule as the sustained-yield management 

 imposes. 



Especially for the State, with its extensive holdings and without the necessity of 

 securing a continuous and even annual revenue from these woods, there is no need to 

 adhere to this principle, and to waste money and energy in finding out what the 

 future growth will be. Let the next generation count the chickens for which we have 

 secured the opportunity of development, favoring the better breeds. No fine meas- 

 uring, calculating, and predicting of future incomes is necessary to assure us that the 

 replacement of a decrepit old stand of timber by a vigorous new crop of better kinds 

 is the true financial policy for the State. As slowly or as fast as market conditions 

 and other esthetic as well as economic considerations warrant, the old, unprofitable 

 investment of Nature should be changed into a new, live investment of art and skill, 

 by practicing silviculture pure and simple. 



