202 Forestry Quarterly. 



ties and of apparently the same value. The system of taxing 

 timber as other property is taxed was long ago abandoned by 

 every other progresive nation. To ascertain what the actual 

 burden of taxation on timber lands in this country is to-day, will 

 require an exhaustive study covering a long period of time. 



I do not know that excessive taxation has as yet prevented the 

 adoption of forestry methods by lumbermen for the reason that 

 other conditions have not been propitious. The price of stump- 

 age has not yet reached that point where such methods can be 

 applied even if there were no taxes. It is significant that in the 

 localities and species where timber prices are the highest taxes 

 have correspondingly risen. This is true in the white pine of 

 the Northern States where the taxes are much higher than upon 

 timber in other sections. Conservative methods might be under- 

 taken in logging white pine if there was no annual taxes were it 

 not for the fact that physical and climatic conditions are far more 

 favorable for securing natural reproduction in yellow pine of 

 the Southern States, and in the fir of the Pacific Coast States. 

 This is, of course, due to the more rapid growth of the two latter 

 species. I believe that the pine forests of the North will have 

 to be sacrificed before Southern and Western timber has reached 

 a value which will make it possible to log it in a way to secure 

 successive crops. All but a remnant of the Northern forests 

 will be gone under present conditions inside of fifteen years. I 

 do not believe that the Northern States will present a field for the 

 activities of the forester, except in State and Federal service, to 

 be compared with the opportunities in the Southern and Western 

 States. Private forestry will offer very little inducement to the 

 owners of Southern and Western timber inside of ten to fifteen 

 years, and it never will be much of an inducement until the tax 

 is made to follow the saw. 



A tax upon the timber crop when it is cut would make it un- 

 necessary for the owner to put up additional capital to sustain 

 his property as is necessary under the increasing annual tax. A 

 tax on the yield would make it an object for the timber owner to 

 hold his property for future speculative values as it would entirely 

 eliminate the principal element now entering into the carrying 

 charge when considering what the final cost may be of holding a 

 tract of timber. The problem of how best to tax timber wealth 

 in such a way as to encourage forestry while at the same time 



