158 THE PASSENGER PIGEON IN PENNSYLVANIA 



barns and other outbuildings and about half of his 

 land is cleared and under a good state of cultivation. 

 With all the improvements on his land and about half 

 cf his farm a forest, the same as the land adjoining, 

 he only assessed his land at $8 per acre, while the land 

 adjoining him on all sides, minus eleven rods, was as- 

 sessed at $75 per acre. How much value would a 

 man Hke this attach to the oath he was required to 

 take before taking up the duties of an assessor? 



If a man had wild land given to him he could not 

 hold it twenty-five years, unless he was at least a mil- 

 lionaire. But we will wager dollars to buttons that 

 he would never get back the amount he had paid in 

 taxes, to say nothing of the use of the amount he had 

 paid in taxes for the twenty-five years. 



C. W. DICKINSON. 

 Concord, Mass., May 23, 1917. 



Compounding Taxable Values On the Forest Land 



This method of taxation, based upon the value of 

 the product of past years, that had been taxed, from 

 year to year, as it matured, was confiscation of pro- 

 perty, by compounding the yearly earnings of the land ; 

 instead of basing the tax at about the value of growth 

 of timber, for the year it was levied for. and paid, 

 seems to evade and annul, in fact, the fairness con- 

 templated in Section I, of the First Article of the Con- 

 stitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It 

 also ignores the principle that our usury laws are 

 founded on. 



