Forestry and the Lumber Business. 20I 



statement, it is to be regretted that up to this time the pubHc gen- 

 erally has opposed any change in present methods of taxing tim- 

 ber lands. If the enthusiastic conservationists expect lumbermen 

 to preserve their trees they must meet them on their own ground 

 and show more of a spirit of harmonious co-operation than has 

 so far been manifested. It is plainly to the interest of the for- 

 esters to show the people that so long as the forests continue to 

 be taxed on the basis of an annual crop, holding young trees 

 until they reach maturity means financial loss to anyone who 

 attempts it. Such methods of taxation are in the end ruinous to 

 the community also, for they encourage devastation and aban- 

 donment to the State of lands that thereafter yield no revenue 

 either in the form of products or taxes. 



At the present time the important matter of the taxes to be 

 levied against timber lands rests entirely in the hands of the 

 local assessors, whose only ambition seems to be to get the largest 

 amount of money they can collect from the owners of timber in 

 their counties. They hold that the more taxes lumbermen are 

 required to pay the faster they will cut their timber, hence, the 

 larger operations they will conduct, the more men they will em- 

 ploy, and the more quickly will the country be opened for settle- 

 ment. Timber is now taxed under the general property tax 

 system, the same as most other forms of wealth. Assessments 

 are usually made by men having no special qualification for the 

 work. In some localities efforts are made to cruise or estimate 

 the timber, but knowledge as to the amount and value of timber 

 on certain pieces of land is generally gained from second-hand 

 evidence or by very superficial examination of the property. The 

 increase in the values of forest lands for the purpose of taxation 

 has been from four to five hundred per cent, in many sections 

 within the past few years. The rate of taxation varies according 

 to the township or county in which the timber is situated, and 

 widely different assessments are made by different tax assessors 

 residing in the same towns so that there is no uniformity in either 

 the rate or valuation. There is nowhere in the United States any 

 uniformity for levying assessments on timber or cut-over lands. 

 The results of such haphazard methods are frequently surpris- 

 ing. It is latterly impossible to make anything like a definite 

 statement in regard to these matters because of the great varia- 

 tion in assessments and rates upon the timber in the same locaU- 



