366 Forestry Quarterly. 



very favorable for carrying out a plan of long-time management. 

 At the present time Formosa imports about two million dollars 

 worth of lumber annually, a large part of it from the United 

 States ; but the work which the Japanese Government is now 

 undertaking is expected to greatly reduce the lumber impor- 

 tations and at the same time develop a region which, during the 

 seven centuries the island was under Chinese control, was entirely 

 uncivilized and isolated. We have good reason to be proud of the 

 progress made in the practical management of our National 

 Forests during the past ten years ; yet it is something of a blow to 

 our pride to find that the Japanese, in a forest which they have 

 owned only since 1908, are applying methods which are perhaps 

 more intensive than any we have yet inaugurated, and this in 

 territory which has been in their possession only since the 

 Chinese-Japanese war. To give all due credit, we must conclude 

 that the work in the Arisan forest is the most ambitious forest 

 project yet attempted in the Orient. 



While the past year has been one of perhaps unprecedented 

 advance in matters of State forest legislation, the new laws have 

 thus far failed to provide any solution of the vexed question of 

 forest taxation. Probably the unvarnished truth is that none of 

 the volunteer associations is ready with definite recommendations ; 

 while the individuals who hold decided views on the subject are 

 not in a position to get their ideas enacted into laws, or are too 

 much at variance between themselves to procure definite results. 

 Many believe that the tax question is second in importance to that 

 of fires, and in certain States at least its solution would remove 

 one of the lumbermen's stock reasons for not cutting for a second 

 crop. If forest taxation were on a more rational basis, it is still 

 a surmise whether there would be any appreciable increase in the 

 amount of non-agricultural land kept under forest. Our whole 

 tax system is crude and in many ways faulty ; yet industry has not 

 allowed itself to be materially hampered ; and while better forest 

 taxation is needed and should be sought, there is no real reason 

 why forest management should not go merrily on its way pending 

 the solution of the taxation problem. The States are showing 

 more liberality in their forest appropriations, and are not only 

 making laws, but providing machinery to operate them ; so we 

 may hope that some day they will feel liberal enough to curtail 



