TIMBER GEOWIXG AXD LOGGIXG PRACTICE IX CALIFORX^IA 55 
may be involved is certainly of less consequence than fluctuations in 
price of lumber, loss clue to' poor equipment, or several other factors 
accepted as a part of the business risk in producing lumber. 
Although these measures by no means represent all that can be 
accomplished to-day in the growing of timber in the California i)ine 
region, they bridge the gap between current practice, with a high 
percentage of denuded cut-over land or of broken and patchy stands, 
and a reasonable utilization of the land with the minimum change 
in existing practice and the minimum of extra logging costs. 
Whether the individual landowner plans to grow a new crop of 
wood or not, such utilization is believed essential in the public in- 
terest. It is essential likewise to the owner who proposes to ex- 
change or sell his land to someone who will engage in timber 
growing. 
The owner of forest land who wishes, however, to make full use 
of the growing power of his land as a business asset should carefully 
consider the adoj^tion of other methods which are in general and suc- 
cessful use on national forest cuttings and which at a comparatively 
small additional cost will more nearly attain a complete utilization of 
the productive capacity of the land than will the foregoing minimum 
measures. Such methods, designed to insure full timber crops, are 
discussed in the following pages. 
MEASURES NECESSARY TO PRODUCE FULL TIMBER 
CROPS 
CONDITIONS AFFECTING PRIVATE TIMBER GROWING 
It is customary to discuss private timber growing in California 
pine on the assumption that because it takes 75 or 100 years to grow 
a merchantable tree, it will be necessary to wait for a couple of 
generations after the virgin forest is cut before any returns begin 
from investments in a new timber crop. With this erroneous as- 
sumption as a start, and with its corollary of repeated administra- 
tion and protection expenses j)iling up, private timber growing 
appears to be indeed a hopeless undertaking. Compound interest 
calculations become the controlling factor. 
The real facts of the matter are, it would seem, sufficiently clear. 
Actually, for any landowner, private or public, the situation is this, 
starting for the sake of simplicity with a new operation on a good 
quality site : 
The first year, say that one-thirtieth of the entire holding is cut 
over. Certain expenses have to be incurred that year to protect 
and carry the operation as a whole. Taxes must be paid, fire pro- 
tection must be given. The cut-over land must be protected as an 
integral part of the entire operation, not as a separate and distinct 
entity. The owner's real financial problem is to show a net operat- 
ing profit. The second year the situation is still substantially the 
same: current expenses are for the protection of his operation, not 
for any particular part of it. Essentially it makes no immediate 
financial difference whether his cut-over land is a brush field or is 
growing timber. 
Xo business man would propose that current expenses such as 
these should be entered on the books and carried forward year 
