I02 TRANSACTIONS OF ROVAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



It may be hoped that we are on the dawn of a more provident 

 era, and that the State, having made a start by setting the 

 Forest of Dean on a sound system, and having purchased land 

 in Scotland and Ireland, will pursue the course which has been 

 followed with such profitable results in Continental States. It 

 is not good to rely too much on the State for the development 

 of the natural resources of the land. In ordinary commercial 

 enterprise private capital is freely forthcoming ; but in forestry 

 the State enjoys such manifest advantage over individuals that 

 the only hope lies in the Government taking the lead. Besides 

 havino- command of capital and the means of foregoing interest 

 thereon during the period of unproductive growth, Government 

 pays no death duties on property administered for the Crown. 

 A quotation from the Report of the Departmental Committee 

 on Forestry of 1902 shows how inequitably the present system 

 of assessing these duties tells upon the owners of poor land, 

 such as may be most profitably devoted to planting : — 



"Three systems of levying the estate duty on woodlands have 

 already been tried since the introduction of the Finance Act, 

 1894; and that now in force is peculiarly unfair to the poorer 

 districts. The ordinary rate of duty on agricultural estates rests 

 on a maximum basis of twenty-five times the annual value of the 

 land, the consequence being that in the richer districts, where land 

 is valued up to this amount, the [growing] timber itself bears no 

 duty. In the poorer districts of Britain, however, and in Ireland, 

 where under the Finance Act estates are valued down to 16 

 years' purchase, the death duty can, where there is a crop of 

 timber to be valued, be levied upon the latter until the maximum 

 is reached ; the maximmn of 25 years' purchase thereby becoming, 

 in those cases where an estate is sufficiently wooded, the ?ninimum 

 basis. It is, therefore, conceivable that duty calculated on 9 

 years' purchase of an estate could be levied on its timber, which, 

 were the estate more agriculturally prosperous, would be totally 

 exempt. An estate in the comparatively rich land of Devonshire, 

 for example, might escape a death duty upon timber which one 

 i"n Argyllshire might have to bear to the extent of a fourth of the 

 whole duty raised. Moreover, the pressure of such a death duty 

 on timber must both act as a bar to afforestation in districts 

 most needing it, and compel the realisation of immature timber, 

 thus preventing the practice of sound forestry." 



It requires but moderate acquaintance with land management 



