How to earn dividends from a forest

The lure of speculating in commodities is a powerful one for many private investors, as my fellow Fool writer Harvey Jones discussed yesterday. However, this is a high-risk activity that often ends in tears.

Today, I'd like to take a look at a more Foolish commodity-based opportunity whose value generally keeps pace with inflation, requires little effort to develop and can be realised early or late, depending on market conditions. That's right -- timber.