3IO REPORT OF THE FOREST, FISH AND GAME COMMISSIONER. 



that forest management (like farm management, railroad management 

 and any other business management) should see its goal in a strife for the 

 highest rate of interest obtainable from all productive capital engaged in 

 the forest. 



The owners of forests (like the owners of farms, mines, hotels, railroad 

 stocks) cannot be expected to seek any other managerial end in the adminis- 

 tration of their property. 



The rapidity of any development depends (in forests, farms, mines, 

 perhaps in all investments), pre-eminently on the owner's financial ability 

 to make desirable moves at the most desirable time. 



In many instances development is possible only with the help of money 

 borrowed by the owner. Borrowed money (mortgages, bonds) usually 

 proves a curse to the owner of forests after the lapse of a few years. His 

 policy of development is handcuffed by the necessity of meeting the indebt- 

 edness, year in and year out, irrespective of market conditions and labor 

 conditions. Forestry, in such cases, must be destructive. It must pay 

 the bonds as they mature out of the substance of the forest. 



Frequently forest destruction promises better dividends than forest 

 maintenance. In such cases a forest working plan resolves itself into a 

 plan covering the various operations commonly known as destructive 

 lumbering. The soil may be cleared because it is thought to be valuable 

 as farm soil, pasture soil, orchard soil ; or the land may be abandoned after 

 lumbering as worthless when the owner believes that the taxes due on the 

 cleared land (taken together with the expenses of protecting a second 

 growth expectable on the cleared land) form a new investment of an 

 unpromising nature. 



Forests cannot be well developed where the development of the whole 

 country is in arrears. Here the owner is compelled to adopt a policy of 

 waiting — waiting for that general development of the country which is 

 sure permanently to improve the value of stumpage. In such cases a working 

 plan resolves itself into a plan for forest protection (against squatters, 

 fires, etc.). 



In the prairies, and also in the East, the land owner is frequently 

 inclined — on a small scale, usually — to improve the condition of his 

 property silviculturally, making investments for afforestation, cleaning, 



