Читать книгу Practical Forestry in the Pacific Northwest - E. T. Allen - Страница 32

Consequently it is safe to assume that within reasonable limits the consumer will be glad to pay the cost of growing timber when he is obliged to do so. It is also to be expected that the community will desire to maintain a resource which employs labor, pays taxes, and conserves stream flow. Therefore, the price of lumber will be governed, as the price of every staple commodity is governed, by a cost of production including reasonable profit by those engaged in the several stages of the process. That it will include the growing of new timber on a sound, profitable basis is proved by the history of other countries which have undergone the same regulation. This, after all, is the strongest argument with which to answer the skeptic who, on premises and judgment of his own, doubts the above conclusions. We need not claim greater prophetic ability, but have only to make the undeniable assertion that hindsight is better than foresight. Nothing demonstrates economic laws so irrefutably as experience.

Less than 29 per cent of the land area of the United States is occupied by forests today, including swamps, burns and much land which will be devoted to agriculture. Germany, where great economy of material is practiced, where wooden buildings are far fewer, where, indeed, the per capita consumption is only a seventh of ours, keeps 26 per cent of her land area under the most expensive forest management and finds the profit constantly increasing. She is increasing her production and importing heavily from countries where lumber is cheap, like the United States, yet the net returns per acre from the forests of Baden rose from $2.38 in 1880 to $5.08 in 1902. This was due hugely, of course, to improvement of management. In France lands which only fifty years ago could not be sold for $4 an acre now bring an annual revenue of $3. In 1903 the town forest of Winterthur, Switzerland, brought net receipts of $11.69 an acre. These are fair examples in countries where the influence tending toward less use of wood have been working for a very long time. They show such influences do not result in refusal to pay the cost of growing all the wood that can be grown. Wood consumption in European countries is increasing at a rate of from 1–½ to 2 per cent a year. In other words, the consumers are actually willing to pay for more wood than they have found necessary, and are warranting the growers in adopting still more expensive methods to increase the output. Nor has forest growing proved to be possible only by the State or Government. In Germany 46.5 per cent of the forest area is owned privately, in Austria 61 per cent, in France 65 per cent, in Norway 70 per cent. While it is true that the European private owner has better tax and fire conditions, it must also be remembered that the value of the land on which he makes the growing crop yield a good dividend is about ten times as high as it now is in the United States.

The prospective grower of new timber in the American West can expect equal profit here at some time. His chief concern is whether its foreshadowing influences are sufficiently strong at present. To determine this he must consider the probable attitude of the public and of the lumbermen themselves.