LOGGING PRACTICE IN THE LAKE STATES 35 
21 cents per acre merely represents the dividend upon the permanent 
capital invested in growing timber. 
This calculation is very conservative, as there has been no allow- 
ance for stumpage increase in jack pine, and the cost of fire protec- 
tion is placed very high. Jack pine in some localities brings even 
to-day $2 per cord. Within 10 years $2 will unquestionably be the 
average price. The returns may be expected, therefore, to be at least 
double what they are now. On the other hand, with better fire pro- 
tection provided by the State and better general slash disposal 
throughout the region, the cost of fire protection to the private owner 
should become less. This provides sufficient leeway to take care of 
occasional forest fires that may occur and damage from insects, 
fungi, or from other causes. | 
MANAGEMENT OF FOREST LANDS AND WHAT IT 
INVOLVES 
Any private owner who desires to go into the growing of timber 
crops will sooner or later not be satisfied with merely protecting his 
cut-over land from forest fires and utilizing only one-third of the 
productive capacity of the soil but will want to go into more intensive 
forest practice in order to utilize 70 to 90 per cent of the productive 
capacity of the soil. This necessitates a consideration of what is 
further involved in the management of forest land +o produce full 
timber crops. 
INTENSIVE FORESTRY PAYS WHERE CRUDE FOREST PRACTICE 
MAY NOT 
Many of the older civilized countries have been carrying on timber 
growing with success for years. Forest practice is carried on success- 
fully in European countries under different types of ownership. In 
Germany 47 per cent of the forest land is privately owned; in 
France, 65.5 per cent; and in Sweden, 76.4 per cent. In all of these 
countries forestry is considered a safe and profitable industry, and 
continuous forest production is the common practice on private lands. 
The stumpage prices in some instances and for some grades and 
species are undoubtedly higher but not very much higher than in 
this country. On the other hand, while labor costs are lower, land 
values are much higher than here. Then why is intensive forest 
practice so little applied to the large privately owned timber tracts 
in this country ? 
Fear of fires that may destroy in a few hours the accumulated 
forest capital of years is undoubtedly one of the great deterrents to 
the practice of forestry by private landowners in the United States. 
Yet fire protection in some of the Lake States is now reaching a 
stage where the forest may be considered a reasonable risk, and it 
will become still better as more forest land is handled for permanent 
forest production. The bogey of high taxes is another deterrent—in 
some instances the high present rate on cut-over land, but more 
especially the uncertainty of future taxes. But forest taxes are 
higher in some other countries, and yet do not prevent the forest 
owner from practicing forestry; as a matter of fact, they drive him 
