444 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



Various degrees of transition may be recognized, but the important 

 point is that some trees have a very rigid root habit, while with others 

 it is more flexible. Deep-root systems of an inflexible nature cannot 

 produce large trees in shallow soils, whether the shallowness is caused 

 by rock or ice. Trees whose root systems are flexible and are not too 

 deep-rooted in deep soils may endure shallow soils. The degree of 

 flexibility of habit and the degree of penetration in deep soils may 

 determine the northward distribution of many plants, regardless of 

 relations between the plant and its environment that may exclude 

 other species from those regions. Of the species studied, black spruce, 

 tamarack, and birch are classed as having a rigid shallow-root habit ; 

 white spruce, a flexible shallow-root habit ; balsam poplar, a deep, 

 flexible-root habit ; jack pine and white pine, a deep, rigid-root habit. 



C. F. K. 



Pulling, Howard E. : Root Habit and Plant Distribution in the Far North. 

 The Plant World 21 : 223-233, September, 1918. 



MENSURATION, FINANCE, AND MANAGEMENT 



M. Arnould cites an article by the President 

 Forest of the Royal Scottish Arborcultural Society in 



Taxation the Society bulletin for July, 19 18, as proof that 



in England the increasing burden of forest taxation is not 



peculiar to France, but exists also in England. In 

 the article referred to, the Duke of Buccleuch gives figures for two 

 tracts owned by him, on the first of which the annual tax amounts to 

 122 per cent of the annual revenue, and on the other to 132 per cent 

 of the revenue. Without the supertax imposed as a result of the 

 war the other taxes in the first case would have absorbed nearly 86 

 per cent of the revenue, and in the second case nearly 100 per cent. 

 Particular attention is called to the fact that forest products are the 

 only kind of property forced to pay both the so-called "death duty," 

 amounting to 21 per cent of the value of the products sold, and the 

 income and supertaxes amounting to 5254 per cent. Figures are 

 quoted from the report of the Forestry Subcommittee of the Recon- 

 struction Committee to prove the impracticability of reforestation 

 under such taxes as these. In the case of a Sitka spruce plantation, 

 for instance, the net loss under these taxes at the end of a 70-year 

 rotation at five per cent interest would be 285 pounds 18 shillings per 

 acre, and at 2)/, per cent 29 pounds 7 shillings. M. Arnould concludes 

 his paper with renewed emphasis on the injustice of present methods 



