508 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



injury to a minimum. Occasionally it is necessary to use yellow pine 

 trees for this purpose, which should always be protected by placing 

 chunks of wood under the straps. The "bull" block, which is always 

 subject to a severe strain, was usually placed on a white fir tree or a 

 high stump. If a tree was used for this purpose, it was felled before 

 the "donkey" moved to the.npxt landing. The smaller blocks used on 

 the main line and haulback line are not subject to a severe strain, and 

 the injury to the trees where these blocks were used was very small. 



Changes Proposed in Louisiana Taxation 



The recently created Board of State Affairs in Louisiana has at- 

 tacked the problem of revising the tax lists of the State. The board 

 proposes, first, to make a thorough investigation of the property owned 

 by lumber companies. It is feared by some operators that the timber 

 interests have been singled out and that the agricultural interests are 

 to a considerable extent to be left undisturbed. It is proposed to in- 

 crease State revenue by raising the value of taxable property on the 

 assessor's books rather than to increase the tax rate. To this end they 

 propose to increase the assessed value of pine timber from $1 per 

 thousand feet to $3 per thousand feet, and also to raise the value of 

 sawmill plants, logging outfits, and other property of lumber companies. 

 The lumbermen of the State are planning a campaign to forestaHl the 

 proposed increase unless it is applied to all dlasses of property. A 

 number of interesting facts have been brought to light showing the 

 status of the agricultural interests from the taxation standpoint. It 

 has been estimated that in 1916 the following discrepancy occurred in 

 assessing farm property : Cattle only 49 per cent assessed ; horses only 

 70 per cent assessed; mills only 91 per cent assessed; sheep and goats 

 only 31 per cent assessed ; hogs only 6.4 per cent assessed. Fifty-one 

 per cent of the automobiles licensed by the State did not appear on 

 the assessment roll, and also there were 3,500,000 acres of land which 

 escaped taxation,. Thirty-five parishes did not assess any farm im- 

 provements, machinery or equipment of any kind for farm use, and 

 '45 parishes did not assess a single hog. Lumbermen have felt for a 

 long time that they have borne an undue share of the tax burden of 

 the State, and an effort will be made to put the agricultural interests 

 on a proper basis. An interesting side light on the agricultural tax 

 question has been the antipathy of the farmers toward compulsory 



