516 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



kinds of timber for the first years of their growth will not only allow of this- 

 selection but each plant will help to carry up its fellow to a straight, upright 

 position. 



The best specimens, too, should be trained a little each year by clipping off 

 the side shoots and training for an upright growth. Such plantings for 

 timber on any farm of our valuable improved lands through the country will 

 soon grow to such proportions and prove in every way so superior to the self- 

 planted original wood lot that the fanner will readily decide to let it take the- 

 place of the other for timber lands on the farm. He can then clear the old 

 woodlot for other farm purposes. Such restocking with timber really costs 

 the farmer so little in labor and expense that he may even be a gainer in his 

 annual income from the farm while accomplishing this change — counting the 

 timber taken from the old woodlot, the superiority of its virgin soil for till- 

 age, and the less number of acres required for an equally good stock of new 

 timber growth. 



Exempting Forest Plantations from Taxation. — Mr. N. A. Fletcher of 



Grand Rapids, in response to a question inquiring his opinion concerning the 



feasibility of stimulating the plantation of forest areas by exempting them 



from taxation, replied: 



Much has been done by legislation to preserve natural forests and encourage 

 the production of others. European countries were long ago driven by neces- 

 sity to take action in the matter, and we should have been warned by their 

 experience not to delay. We can profit by their successes and failures, and it 

 is encouraging to know that public sentiment in favor of immediate action has 

 for some years been growing throughout the country. It is not possible within 

 the limits of this article to give even a synopsis of the laws affecting the sub- 

 ject, which have been found efficient. I may do so in a future number if the 

 editor will give me space. At present I will answer only that part of the ques- 

 tion which relates to the exemption from taxation of property devoted to tim- 

 ber culture. That is a common device of law-makers for assisting industries,, 

 and has been used with the idea of promoting forestry, as well as nearly every 

 other kind of business. But it is of little account, except in those States or 

 countries where taxes are unusually high. It could do but little, if anything, 

 in this State. The industry, to become general, must be profitable; because it 

 will not attract the necessary capital unless it gives promise of a fair reward. 

 An exemption from taxation would help to make it profitable, but though 

 taxes amount in the aggregate to a large sum, in individual cases they are but 

 a small item of the expense, and if the industry will not pay well enough to 

 stand its share of the taxes, it does not present sufficient hope of profit to en- 

 gage the attention of any but those who give their time to it for sentiment or 

 pleasure. Besides, in this country a legislature has no power to give a pledge 

 that a certain kind of property shall remain exempt from taxation, which will 

 bind its successors. If one legislature should enact that property devoted to 

 forestry should be exempt from taxes, that pledge would be binding on the 

 consciences of their successors, and might restrain them from disregarding it,, 

 but it would not prevent them from doing so. If a legislature could do it as 

 to one industry, it could do it to many. Successive legislatures might exempt 

 tbe property used in the industries they thought most necessary to encourage, 

 and soon the whole burden of government would fall on a very few. It is 



