T38 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



by an appeal to Special or Quarter Sessions, but that the costs 

 of such an appeal are out of all proportion to the saving of rates 

 effected by a successful appeal, and consequently the illegal 

 over-assessments remain, and the benefits of the Rating Act of 

 1874, so necessary for the promotion and encouragement of 

 afforestation, do not in fact reach the occupiers of woodlands. 



The Board have no jurisdiction to lay down any rules for the 

 guidance of Assessment Committees in the matter, but in view 

 of the representations which have been made to them, they 

 desire to call the attention of the Assessment Committee to the 

 following observations upon the provisions of the Act of 1874, 

 contained in the Circular addressed to Assessment Committees 

 on the 24th November 1874. 



The Act classifies woodland under three heads, viz. : — 



1. Land used only as a plantation or a wood. 



2. Land used for the growth of saleable underwood. 



3. Land used both for a plantation or a wood, and also 



for the growth of saleable underwood. 



I. In the first case, viz., where the land is used only for a planta- 

 tion or a wood, and not for the growth of saleable underwood, 

 the Act provides that the gross and rateable value (meaning by 

 gross value the gross estimated rental, as defined by the Union 

 Assessment Committee Act, 1862) shall be estimated as if the 

 land, instead of being a plantation or a wood, were let and 

 occupied in its natural and unimproved state. 



It is the duty, therefore, of the Assessment Committee to deal 

 with the land as if it were divested of timber or wood of any 

 description, and to determine its value without taking into account 

 any improvement which has been made, or of which the land 

 might be capable. 



It will be observed that the words used are " as if the land, 

 instead of being a plantation or a wood, were let and occupied in 

 its natural and unimproved state," and the word " occupied " 

 was introduced in order to show clearly that the capabilities of 

 the land for improvement were to be excluded from consideration 

 in estimating the rent at which it might reasonably be 

 expected to let from year to year, and that the land was to be 

 valued as if it would continue to be occupied in its natural state, 

 without any expenditure of capital in its improvement ; or, in 

 other words, as if it were waste land. 



