Forestry and Taxation 215 



owner, the assessment must be based, not upon what 

 a man would be willing to pay who wanted the land 

 for agriculture, but on what timber producers would 

 pay for it. That this is not possible under present 

 conditions is plain. The only fair thing to do, 

 then, would be to assess such lands at what the 

 counties will get when they sell their tax titles, 

 in other words, a few cents an acre. This, however, 

 the local assessors refuse to do, and the confiscation 

 goes merrily on. 



So far we have spoken of the cases where lands 

 from which the merchantable timber has been taken 

 are assessed and taxed at an exorbitant rate. But 

 timber owners fare not a whit better when they are 

 taxed on land stocked with uncut merchantable 

 timber. It is remarkable how much sound, mer- 

 chantable pine or other timber the assessor is able 

 to find on a given tract of land. It must be said, 

 however, that it is equally wonderful how little of 

 it can be found by the estimator who looks at it in 

 the employ of a prospective purchaser. The fact 

 is that all information obtainable as to the amount 

 of merchantable timber now growing on the forest 

 lands of the country is utterly unreliable. The es- 

 timates are based on guess-work at best, and the 

 guesses are affected by the purposes for which they 

 are made. It is probable that the information 

 really in the possession of the great lumbering con- 

 cerns and their woodsmen is much more accurate 

 than the statements that are made by them to 

 strangers, including takers of the census and other 



