058 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



of figures, is the point emphasized. And this Se value for a given 

 quality of soil, or some fractional part of it, should be the assessed 

 value of the soil. 



A forest property can stand it to be taxed on such a valuation and 

 no more. If this value of the soil be taken as the assessed value, 

 then no righteous assessment may be placed against the growing crop. 

 If we should tax the natural power of the soil to produce, that is all 

 we would have any right to tax until the thing we are producing is 

 produced; namely, a mature crop of timber. In justice a growing 

 crop of timber is not taxable property. To tax it every year for 100 

 years at its sale value (and it has a sale vahie — and expectation 

 value — though it has no use value) is as wrong as it would be to tax 

 a crop of potatoes at its sale value every morning for one hundred 

 days. Neither crop can stand it to be taxed that way. The final 

 yield will not pay tbe tax bill. Farm land is assessed according to its 

 power to produce and the crops justly escape taxation. They are not 

 exempt from taxation. They are simply not taxed. It is too obvious 

 to the listers that farm crops are not taxable when a tax on farm land 

 is collected based on the power of the soil to produce. The same 

 principle applies with equal forces in forest taxation, for here also 

 the soil has a power to produce. In both cases this power possessed 

 by the soil should be reduced to a base value and the tax assessed 

 against it. In the case of the farm this is actually what happens, for 

 the farm's power to produce and its sale value are closely associated 

 in the minds of men. This is not so in the case of the forest, however, 

 for here the sale value of the soil often shows no relation to its pro- 

 ductivity value. And yet, the real taxable entity — power produce — 

 should be deduced and taxed. 



The application of this principle is not difficult. The soil expecta- 

 tion values should be determined by a competent authority for the 

 best and the poorest sites which a prudent man may be expected to use 

 for timber production purposes. Maximum and minimum values 

 would thus be cstal^lished as guides for the listers in fixing all assess- 

 ment values between these extremes. These upper and lower limits 

 of value should be written into the law and should be placed as close 

 together as the computing authority can in justice persuade himself 

 to do, and the whole scale of values should be kept as low as reason 

 will permit. In determining these upper and lower limits of value 



