FORICST TAXATION G57 



The tax against mature timber is justified on the ground that timber 

 is being taxed at present ; that its period of development is past ; that 

 it is physical, tangible property and represents wealth. Also, in most 

 cases, it represents a speculative venture and as such is producing 

 wealth. The owner is holding it just as a broker in the wheat pit 

 holds wheat— with the hope, and usually the certainty, of realizing 

 greater profits from increased stumpage in a rising market than by 

 operating the tract and turning his money to some other account. It 

 is considered correct in theory to tax mature timber because it has 

 reached a stage in its development when, unlike a growing crop, it has 

 a commercial use value. The assessed value in this case should be 

 the sale value of the property.^ The tax against the land alone is also 

 justifiable. The land, like mature timber, is physical, tangible prop- 

 erty and its possession represents wealth. But here the simile ends. 

 The mature timber is held for the rise in market values, or as a store- 

 house for raw material to be manufactured by a plant now in existence, 

 while the land is held because it possesses a pozver to produce addi- 

 tional property. 



All lands possess this power to a greater or lesser degree. Some 

 have more of it than others, and therefore are more valuable, other 

 things being equal, than less gifted lands. A)id in this z^r find the 

 solution of the problem. The land alone, which is. or is to be, devoted 

 to the production of timber has a measureable power to produce tim- 

 ber, and since timber has a sale value, this power to produce possessed 

 by the soil has a value also, which the forester calls the expectation 

 value of the soil. The determination of such value is simple and in 

 its minutest detail of application foresters find it unnecessary to dis- 

 tinguish more than five classes of soil as far as site qualities are con- 

 cerned. Now, if the foresters of Baden, Saxony, Bavaria, and other 

 German States find that five classes of soil fit conditions in Europe 

 there is no reason why five, or even three, classes of soil, as far as 

 timber producing power is concerned, will not fit conditions of one 

 State here. But no matter if there were an infinite number of classes 

 of soil, distinguishable, as far as the power to produce is concerned, 

 between sites ill adapted to tree growth, and sites best suited for that 

 purpose, soil expectation values occupy comparatively a narrow range 



^ It is realized that forest economists of the Pacific Northwest might justly 

 find fault in these conclusions ; however, there is a similar solution to their 

 problem. 



