FOREST PLANTING IN THE LAKE STATES 59 
spruce; and from $197 to $300 an acre 'for Norway and northern 
white pine. Under still longer rotations for higher yields and values 
the profits are even more remunerative. 
PUBLIC PLANTING 
Whereas the private owner can most profitably grow timber in 
the shortest period necessary to produce a merchantable crop, the 
public owner derives greater profit from growing the timber over 
a longer period of years for the production of higher yields, higher 
quality, and higher values. Planting by the Federal Government, 
State, county, or town on publicly-owned lands has thus certain 
distinctive features. In the first place, the cost of fire protection is 
higher for the State or Federal Government, which must maintain 
a complete protection organization, than for the private owner who 
receives the benefit of State-wide protection and adds to it only 
what is needed to make it thoroughly effective on his lands. There- 
fore, in determining the profitability of planting on public lands the 
item of fire protection has been placed at a maximum figure of 15 
cents an acre a year. Secondly, public owners pay no taxes, 11 and 
accordingly that item of annual expense i,s eliminated. Finally, 
public investments are made over long periods at low rates of 
interest. The profit from planting on public lands has, therefore, 
been computed as the net return per acre, over and above 3 per cent 
compound interest on the investment, from certain assumed future 
stumpage values for the timber crop. 
Jack pine or spruce crops for pulpwood produce on this basis 
considerably less than $100 an acre profit, but Norway and northern 
white pine saw timber show net profits up to $867 an acre. The 
latter figure is for northern white pine plantings on good soil at a 
cost of $10 an acre, grown for 120 years to yield 50,000 board feet 
to the acre with an estimated value of $25 a thousand. This figure 
may be compared with $131.85 an acre profit for the same timber 
at 60 years and yielding only 15,000 board feet with a value of $15 
a thousand. At 100 years the profit is $547.60 an acre for Norway 
pine planted on sandy lands at a cost of $6.50 an acre to produce 
40,000 board feet valued at $20 a thousand. This is about $9 higher 
than the profit at 120 years, when it should produce 50,000 board 
feet to the acre. These examples show clearly that the public owner 
derives the greatest profit from producing timber of high quality 
over periods of 100 to 120 years. The public forests are thus in a 
position to perform a much needed function in supplying the demand 
for large-dimension and high-quality timber products. 
The whole planting question may be summed up for the northern 
Lake States in the statement that the planting of bare land offers to 
the private owner an opportunity to realize a reasonable rate of 
interest on his own investment, and to the public landowner or to the 
large company in the timber growing business over long periods it 
promises to be not only an essential source of raw material but also 
a thoroughly profitable form of investment. 
11 The payments which Michigan and the Federal Government make to the counties in 
which State or national forests are situated, in lieu of taxes, come from appropriations 
for the purpose. Direct reimbursement for these expenses is not anticipated in the returns 
from the mature crop. Therefore they are not considered as items of expense in the 
public- planting operations. 
