of community life, the exchange of visits and social courtesies,
neighborhood gatherings, social association, fellowship, and the home,
the school and the church. The roads should be built for some of the
pleasures and comforts of life as well as for their pecuniary interest.
It has been said that the pecuniary benefits of good roads sink into
insignificance when compared with their social, moral and educational
advantages. Man after all is only a social being, and is influenced
by his surroundings. The maintenance of a seat of learning, or of a
good church in and by a neighborhood has its influence upon the people
of that community. The maintenance of anything tending towards better
living has a good influence. The maintenance of a good road or improved
road has a good influence by permitting easier intercourse between the
people of country communities, between rural and urban population, and
unifies social and commercial interests. The rural mail delivery is one
of the greatest means of education today. Good roads facilitate rural
mail delivery, and therefore tend to improve educational conditions. The
improvement of our roads would also facilitate the central high school
idea for country districts, for while our roads are not an impassable
barrier in all of the districts, in some they are, and in many they are
obstacles. If our country churches are to be supplied with good pastors
and our country schools with able teachers, better libraries and other
facilities, it must be by the support of greater wealth therefor, by
the consolidation of the districts being possible only where good roads
exist, where people can be easily and safely transported. The schools and
the churches in many sections of our best land have a decayed, run-down,
neglected appearance. Churches which are practically abandoned certain
seasons of the year because of the condition of the roads, country
schools not accessible in seasons of bad roads, little children plodding
through mud and water and compelled to sit all day in the school room
with wet feet and damp clothing—this may not apparently affect the
children today, but for all the parents know it may be instrumental in
undermining otherwise strong constitutions and laying up many aches and
pains for future life. As someone has appropriately asked, “Why should
a Christian people have heathen roads and a civilized people barbarous
ones?” One thought which possibly you have heard brought out time and
time again at these congresses for several years is that the trend of
population has been from the farms to the cities and the towns. A large
part of the best blood and sinew of the country has been trying to get
away from the farm. If this continues, it is going to sap the farm
industry of its best blood and its best energy. There is something wrong
today with our country conditions, when so many of our best farmers leave
the farms and seek homes elsewhere in order to give their families better
social and educational advantages and when so many of the brightest
youths from the country become discouraged with country life and endeavor
to escape from the farm. A fair percentage of the men and women, boys
and girls must be kept on the farm. This can be done by making farm
life worth living. Good roads will help to do it. Will the best, most
progressive farm ever be developed without these young men and women,
boys and girls to grow into intelligent farmers? Will the increased
yield per acre by means of better farming become fully effectual without
bettering the means for marketing that yield? Can you incite better
farming and maintain a higher order of intelligence and social conditions
in country life without easy means of communication? Can country life be
supplied with the necessary association and good fellowship, without good
roads?
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, let me state that I do not contend that
good roads is the whole solution for happiness and prosperity of country
life, but I do contend that a very necessary and important part of it is
the relation which our public roads bear to our social and moral and our
educational life. The home and the school are the nucleus around which
our social life exists, and this is especially true of country life.
Neglect your public road conditions and you will not only neglect your
transportation facilities, but you will neglect your social and your
educational environments.
The articles that we eat and wear must come from the farm, and the growth
and the development of agriculture and the life connected therewith, no
matter how we may view this question of the development of the farm, the
betterment of life and the development of the country community life,
its transportation, exchange of commodities, the basis upon which it
rests will be found a question of good roads. No proposition for the
betterment of country conditions, no proposition for the good country
life is an assured success until good roads are assured. It all rests
upon the question of transportation, and communication, and the basis of
transportation is the public wagon road. (Applause)
Professor CONDRA—I beg leave to submit the report of the committee on
credentials.
The Chair announces the appointment of the following committee on
credentials:
Prof. Geo. E. Condra, of Nebraska.
Dr. H. E. Barnard, of Indiana.
Mr. Ralph H. Faxon, of Kansas.
Mr. E. T. Allen, of Oregon.
Mr. W. E. Barns, of Missouri.
President WALLACE—If you want to get the proceedings of the Congress,
which will be worth their weight in gold, give your name and a dollar to
the secretary.
Professor CONDRA—I move that the report be received and the committee
discharged.
President WALLACE—We will now hear the Hon. J. B. White, of Kansas City,
who will tell us what he knows about lumber in Europe.
MR. WHITE—In Europe the experience of more than a hundred years in forest
management has resulted in a more or less scientific and practical
policy, although it cannot be said that a well defined, universal policy
has yet obtained. This is largely due to conditions of ownership, with
consequent variance in ideas as applying to various local conditions,
as well as the difference in necessities and financial ability of
individual owners to carry out in successful practice the best approved
methods. Hence there is a growing tendency towards greater governmental
control, whereunder the most economic working system, suited to different
conditions of soil, climate and kind of forestry, would be intelligently
considered and properly installed.
In the German Empire 47 per cent of the entire forest area is privately
owned, and 32 per cent by the state, 19 per cent by institutions,
communities and associations, and 21 per cent by the crown. Thirty-three
per cent is hardwood and 67 per cent conifers. They are now cutting about
their annual growth, taking an average of hardwood and conifers.
Austria-Hungary exports more lumber than any other nation in the world.
It covers 46,500,000 acres, or a little over 30 per cent of the total
land area. In Austria the forests are composed principally of conifers,
spruce, pine and fir, only 15 per cent of the acreage being of hardwood.
Sixty-one per cent is in the hands of private owners, and one-half of
this, or 30 per cent of the entire forest, in the hands of small owners.
The state owns less than 11 per cent of the forests; the balance belongs
to churches and communities. The average yearly growth of all the
Austrian forests is said to be about forty-two cubic feet per acre, or
an annual growth of about 1,100,000,000 cubic feet. They are now cutting
annually 250,000,000 cubic feet more than this, or 20 per cent faster
than it is growing. This excess of cut, over the growth, will in large
measure regulate itself, as the increasing demand makes the industry more
profitable and encourages the planting of greater forest area.
In Hungary about 75 per cent of the total forest area is oak, beech,
maple and other hardwood species, and only 25 per cent of conifers. The
annual yield of conifers is about fifty-eight cubic feet per acre, and
that of oak about forty-one cubic feet per acre. Thus the conifers yield
the largest percentage of commercial lumber and are most valuable as a
crop because of more rapid growth, and because of their larger demand
for building purposes. Sixty per cent of the total acreage in Hungary
is private forests, about 18 per cent is state forest, and 22 per cent
communal and church forests. The annual cut in Hungary is estimated to be
less than the annual growth.
England has not until very recently deemed forestry profitable,
preferring to buy her supply. Of her 3,000,000 acres of woodlands, mostly
devoted to parks and the chase, the state only owns 2 per cent. France
has 24,000,000 acres of forest, or 18 per cent of its land area, of which
only 12 per cent of its wooded area belongs to the state.
Switzerland has about 25 per cent of her total area under forest. The
Zurich forest, known as the Sihlwald, containing 2,760 acres, is 85
per cent hardwood, and is worked on a rotation period of 100 to 110
years. The forest director claims an annual growth for the Zurich forest
of sixty-five cubic feet per acre, while the general average of all
the forests is only fifty cubic feet per acre. This means the entire
growth—wood, poles, limbs and all. Only 40 per cent of the total cut is
saw timber for building purposes. The net income from this forest for
the past twenty-five years has been from $4.00 to $7.00 per acre, not
including interest charges. It was $4.40 in 1890 and $7.69 in 1907. This
forest has its own mills and saves all profits.
In Switzerland one pays taxes when the crop is harvested. In Germany and
Austria the method of taxation varies in different states, but laws are
always favorable to encourage private forestry. In some cases one pays no
taxes for twenty years. Then one begins to thin out the poles for use of
telegraph and telephone companies, etc., and get a revenue, and leaving a
stand in destructive forestry which, when sixty years old, will yield in
many cases 20,000 feet of lumber, board measure, per acre. In fact, the
average is 4,190 cubic feet per acre of timber and fuel, which, according
to values prevailing in England and Germany, amounts to about $200.00 per
acre.
CUTTING METHODS IN EUROPE.
It was pointed out to us that mixed growth or conservative forestry is
expensive. The most economical and profitable plan is the destructive
method. That is, a forest is planted and grown like any other crop, and
whenever interest, carrying charges and total cost meet the market value
at age and time of greatest profit, then trees are cut and they are all
about of a size. The entire acreage is cut clean and the cost of logging
is cheap. Trees are again planted and another crop grown. Under the old
plan of conservation of mixed growth and mixed sizes, or the shelter-wood
system, not as much can be grown per acre, and the cost of logging out
the large trees is vastly more expensive, and damage is done to other
timber in falling them, while in the destructive method all is taken and
a large crop harvested. It is nice to view these stands of timber in
strips, side by side, ranging in years from baby trees to stands of ten,
twenty, thirty, forty, fifty and up to sixty and eighty years of age,
when they are ready to be harvested.
In growing forests in Europe, lands that are better adapted for
agriculture are not used. The degree of utility is considered. And in
determining the value of a forest property, one has to figure compound
interest, as the crop may not be harvested and the capital returned for
sixty or eighty years. Because of absolute protection from forest fires,
capital is regarded as safe, and investors in forests are satisfied with
a low rate. As an investment, forests require less labor than other
crops, if one practices the most economical method of what is called
destructive forestry. In times of temporary high prices, one can take
advantage of the situation and harvest more than the annual growth, and
can then wait and let the trees grow when prices are low, and this is the
usual practice. The rate of interest generally charged to the forests,
and compounded, is sometimes determined by rate yielded by government
securities, which is usually about 2½ per cent.
THE ROTATION METHOD.
It has been ascertained by careful observations that Scotch pine (which
grows rapidly, like our short leaf yellow pine) yields, on medium soil
in every sixty-year rotation in best quality of location, 5,255 cubic
feet per acre, of which an average of 565 cubic feet have been removed in
thinning as the forest has been growing, figuring the thinning out being
done on an average of about every ten years, leaving at the end of sixty
years an average of 4,690 cubic feet per acre. If allowed to remain, this
has increased in ten years to 5,250 cubic feet per acre, besides 536
cubic feet that have been profitably taken out in thinning in the last
ten years, leaving at seventy years 5,250 cubic feet. Now in the next
ten years there will profitably be taken an average of 493 cubic feet in
thinning as against the 536 cubic feet taken out the ten years before,
leaving at the end of eighty years standing on each acre an average
amount of 5,720 cubic feet per acre.
These interesting results follow: With average values of lumber products
as in the year 1910, an eighty-year rotation period with Scotch pine
would pay 2½ per cent compound interest on soil value of $97.00 per
acre. With a ninety-year rotation period it would pay this interest rate
on land worth only $94.00 per acre. On a seventy-year rotation period
it would pay such interest rate on land worth $94.60 per acre, and on
sixty-year rotation it would pay such rate of interest on land worth
$85.00 per acre. This shows that the maximum profits at this low rate
of interest come from cutting the forests at eighty years’ growth. The
greater the variation from this eighty-year period the less favorable the
financial results. The maximum age for hardwood trees for best profit
is said to be rotation periods of about 100 years with a low rate of
interest suited to the safety of the investment. These statistics were
prepared by Sir William Schlich, professor of forestry at the University
of Oxford, and published by him this year, and are undoubtedly reliable.
But it is safer to figure at a compound interest rate of 4 per cent. A
high rate of interest demands a low value of soil, and _vice versa_.
And as Sir William points out, the value is, however, not in inverse
proportion to the rate of interest, as the value of the soil rises more
rapidly than the interest falls. Under a low rate of interest, the
expectation value of soil culminates later than under a high rate of
interest. So that under a 2½ per cent interest rate, the timber could
stand about eighty years; under a 3 per cent rate, about seventy years,
and under a 4 per cent rate it should be cut every sixty years. Or, to
further illustrate, if a party is satisfied with 2½ per cent compound
interest on his investment in European forestry, he could pay $97.00 per
acre for his land, and must cut it at eighty years of age.
If he desires 3 per cent interest he must not pay over $55.50 per acre,
and must cut his timber when seventy years of age. And if he demands 4
per cent interest rate he cannot pay quite $15.00 per acre for his soil,
and must cut his trees when sixty years old.
PERIODS OF PINE TREE GROWTH.
Now this is the best than can be done in Europe (which, according to
statistics, is 37 per cent above the average yield), with the best
results as to soil and favorable location, with low-priced labor, with
most favorable consideration by the government as to taxation, and with
the most approved economical methods, where the limbs and twigs are sold
for fuel, and forest products are fully 50 per cent higher than they are
in the United States. So it is fairly well established that from sixty to
eighty years is the most profitable rotation period for growing Scotch
pine forests in Europe. The higher the rate of interest demanded, the
shorter the rotation.
With advancing age the value of the stumpage increases so that the value
of the soil for forestry becomes nearly positive. But in time a maximum
is reached, and it falls again. This maximum, with 2½ per cent money, is
eighty years growth, and with 4 per cent money only sixty years growth.
The value of the soil under a very brief rotation would be negative, so
that the yield might not even cover the cost of harvesting. And under a
very long rotation, the value of the soil would again become negative,
because it could not stand the compound interest and other expenses for
an excessively long term of years.
It follows that the expenses during the early part of the rotation
affects the expectation value disastrously, for compound interest is
running against this expense for a long term of years, lessened only by
sale of the thinnings in about ten-year periods. Of course a sudden and
heavy increase in the value of stumpage, at any given period after trees
are large enough to cut, may create a second maximum, differing from
the normal average because of an unexpectedly great demand, causing an
abnormally and temporarily high price. But the cost one has to pay for
the soil is really the true value, chiefly determined by its value for
ordinary purposes of agriculture; and as trees will thrive on land not
so well suited for farm crops, such lands are nearly always selected for
forestry. But if the soil can be more profitably used for agriculture in
the examples just mentioned, then the increased value will enter into the
account to change the length period of rotation of forest crop. And where
the acreage is not stocked to its full capacity (on account of poor soil,
or for any other reason), the rotation, for which the highest probable
value of the growing stock is obtained, can, as Sir William states, only
be determined by experimental calculations based on these special cases.
THE YIELD OF FORESTS.
But this method of calculation is absolutely logical, and shows under
the most normal conditions what we can expect, and it has been proved
by experience. The abnormal conditions that may occasionally present
themselves are governed by these same financial methods of reasoning,
differing only in degree of application, by reason of change of basic
conditions in each special case. A normal yield is what the forest can
permanently be depended upon to produce. It is a permanent interest
investment of greater or lesser rate, where the principal will never
be returned, while the land is kept in forest crops. These figures are
based upon the best yields in the clear cutting of destructive forest
system, which, as has been stated, is 37 per cent above the average. But
the principle of calculation applies equally as well in the shelter-wood
system of different age trees; but the average volume per tree in each
age class in the latter system has to be taken into consideration. On
the whole, it has been admitted by the best foresters that the system of
clear cutting, then pulling the stumps, fallowing or planting other crops
for a couple of years, and replanting again, gives the best financial
results.
So much for European forestry. Now how will this system apply to us,
under our conditions of taxation, high-priced labor, and low-priced
forest products, and considering the fact that there is little or no
demand for the thinnings until large enough for telegraph poles, and no
market for the tops and necessary waste in manufacturing? We are lacking
in statistics, because we have not sufficient experience along the
lines of growing new forests, at either private or public expense. But
we are soon to be interested in what it will cost to reforest and grow
commercial timber in the United States. And surely our present supply
of old growth timber from 150 to 300 years old is worth more than the
cost of growing timber sixty to eighty years old. The United States owns
in national forests 192,931,197 acres. The state forest reserves of
3,253,185 acres, the national parks of 4,562,265 acres, and the Indian
forests of approximately 10,000,000 acres, make the total of public
forests over 210,000,000 acres. Chief Forester Graves estimates the area
of private forests as over three times that of the public forests, and
containing five times the timber that is on the public lands.
The countries whose wood exports exceed their imports are:
Austria-Hungary, Canada, Sweden, Russia, Finland, the United States of
America, Norway, Bosnia-Herzgovina, Roumania, and Japan. The countries
whose wood imports exceed their exports are: The United Kingdom, Germany,
France, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Holland, Denmark, Switzerland, Australian
colonies, China, Greece, West Indies, Bulgaria, Servia, and British
possessions in Africa.
CONDITIONS TO BE CONSIDERED.
The climate and other conditions in some countries render them not so
well adapted to growing trees as for growing other crops; and they find
it more profitable to exchange their products for the wood products of
other countries that either have a present surplus, or whose climate,
soil and land values enable them to grow trees at lower cost. This is
true with the different states in our own country. Illinois and Iowa,
for instance, will never grow what timber they require. They can more
profitably grow corn, and exchange for lumber products with those states
which have low-priced and mountainous land with plenty of moisture, so
that trees will grow twice as fast as in those prairie states where land
is very expensive and climate not so well adapted. Trees will be grown
here, as in Europe, where they can be grown cheapest, and they will be
harvested at an age which will bring the greatest net profit. The market
price of the product will be finally and surely governed by the cost of
growth and manufacture, insurance, and risk, and the price of money used
in the business.
If the Government of the United States itself can get money at 2½ per
cent, as it can, while private owners have to pay 5 per cent or 6 per
cent, then it follows that the states and the Government can, for this
very important reason alone, grow commercial trees cheaper than private
individuals, and can remove the maximum rotation period to a more mature
age, giving better lumber from older trees at the same cost at which
private owners would have to furnish poorer lumber, because coming from
younger trees. But the people pay the cost, whatever it may be, whether
the Government or private interests grow the trees. The consumer is
interested that they be grown as cheaply as possible. It is likely true
here, as in Europe, that forestry will be a more general success with
private owners, if they are in some important methods placed under the
practical rules of government forestry. It will be found here, as over
there, that private forests will not prove so generally productive, or,
as a rule, so economically administered, as the government or state
forests under the management of expert foresters. And parenthetically, is
it not equally true that many farms and farmers would be better off if
directed by government or state experts?
In Europe they have no forest losses from fire for the reason that fires
are prevented from starting. The railroad locomotive has been the cause
of most forest fires in the West, and I observe that these Western roads
are now equipping hundreds of their locomotives with spark arresters, so
as to prevent the starting of these fires in the future. United States
Chief Forester Graves very truly says: “Private owners do not practice
forestry for one or more of three reasons: First, the risk of fire;
second, burdensome taxation; third, low price of products.” Forester E.
T. Allen has pointedly said: “Forest protection is the cheapest form of
prosperity insurance a timbered state can buy.” It is not the present
generation so much as it is the future generations that will be affected
disastrously by our neglect. The principles of agriculture, horticulture,
forestry, and the science of conservation of soil and trees, and of life
itself, should be taught in our public schools.
THE EXAMPLE OF DENMARK.