Scott Cullen cites Scorgie and Viitala on writers who valued lands before
Faustmann, and this is useful to know. However, these are secondary sources.
Dear Scott, it would be more useful to know 1) Whom they cited; and 2) what
these primary sources wrote. I suspect one would find their formulae were
primitive relative to Faustmann's.

When Faustmann wrote there were some rival valuation formulae proposed and
in use. They were used not just to value forest lands, but also to determine
optimal rotation cycles (cutting ages). Faustmann's differed in that he
valued forest land by adding the DCF of infinite future rotations to the DCF
of the first one. That is the essential quality of a Faustmann DCF vs.
others. Only a beleaguered minority of foresters agreed with Faustmann.  My
hunch is that the formulae advanced by the writers cited by Scorgie and
Viitala lacked this essential quality. I hope some ambitious young economist
will make his or her reputation by tracking this question down.

As an aside, it will probably be "his" reputation, because forestry and
forest economics seem to have been, and still be, an exclusive male
preserve. This is simply an observation, with no comment. It may also be
just coincidental that central and north central Europe have produced most
foresters. (Even Chapman was Herbert HAUPT Chapman; and Vera Smith was V.S.
LUTZ.)

It is interesting that the forester H.H. Chapman was aware of Irving Fisher,
I should not have written that there was a "wall" between foresters and
economists. It was more like a semiconductor: information could flow from
economists to foresters, but not the other way. Fisher, by the way, never
caught up with Faustmann. Neither did most foresters; they did, however
preserve his formula in odd corners of their textbooks, where it was viewed
as something of an eccentricity from a person who took mathematics too
seriously. A true forester would always retain something of the Druid
spirit.

Mason Gaffney