TWO SOLUTIONS OF THE FORESTRY TAX PROBLEM 



By Arthur Goadby 



ONE of the most urgent needs of thousands of people and milHons of 



our growing conservation poHcy money abroad to Europe every year to 



is a scientific method of forest tax- satisfy the craving for beauty. And 



ation. At present the manner of as- then again we must refer to another 



sessment of private timber lands is un- practical detail, that our wastefulness 



just and arbitrary and permits the an- is compelling us to buy at high prices 



nual re-taxation of all the previous an- from abroad the timber which Nature 



nual increment, thereby driving land- would bestow on us almost for nothing 



owners to hasty and wasteful lumbering at home. 



as well as discouraging them from any So vital are these matters to the 



replanting whatsoever. Nation at large that scientific reforesta- 



These facts have led several of the tion may well be said to be the most 



States in recent years to attempt some important and immediate question be- 



sort of remedy either by exempting fore us. Every eflFort should be made 



forested lands or by regulating the as- at once to secure a forest cover of at 



sessment thereof. But hitherto such least one-fourth our total land area, a 



experiments have met with small sue- proportion now regarded as essential to 



cess largely because of their inadequacy, every civilized community, and one 



and largely because any legislation of actually existing this day in Germany, 



this sort is exceedingly difficult to But since four-fifths of all the land in 



frame and still more difficult to enact, our country is in private hands it is 



since many divergent interests are in- obviously impossible, as well as un- 



volved and in one or two instances well necessary, to achieve this end except by 



devised measures have been nullified by encouraging forestry in some way on 



limitations in the State Constitutions. private lands, and it is also obvious 



Something, however, must be done that either the owners of these lands 



and immediately, for public welfare must be induced to engage in forestry 



depends primarily upon the forests. We or the different States must undertake 



have but to refer to such practical con- to reforest these private lands them- 



siderations as erosion, the washing of selves. 



fertile soil from hillsides and slopes Today it is a question which method 

 where it is of permanent value into is the better, private or public enter- 

 river beds and harbors where it becomes prise. We are in an age of experiment 

 a costly nuisance ; to disastrous floods and perhaps the better solution would 

 due to unrestrained torrents ; to ex- be the latter, but certainly we should 

 treme climatic disturbances whereby try both. 



sudden frosts and heat waves are car- In either case it seems to me there 



ried far out of their normal zones, and are several cardinal principles that 



whereby drought succeeds drought ; and should be embodied in the law of every 



to the increasing scarcity and high cost State, even though some amendment 



of timber. Then we have but to refer will need to be made first to their re- 



to the great hygienic value of forests, .spective State Constitutions, namely : 



for since prehistoric ages they have 1. Since immature standing trees 



been nurseries of vigor ; and to such have no financial value they should be 



aesthetic considerations as unsightly exempted absolutely from taxation 



landscapes and barren mountain slopes, wherever existing, and 



muddy rivers, streams dried up or lit- 2. All private land in the State 



tered with debris, and the thousand and should be assessed at a value reckoned 



one unpicturesque details which send without reference to any immature 



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