Forestry and Taxation 219 



law to one hundred dollars a year, and as a matter 

 of fact most towns pay far less than that, or noth- 

 ing at all, towards this end. If it is true, as is 

 often stated, that taxes are paid in return for the 

 protection received from the government, then 

 timber-lands ought not to be taxed at all, for they 

 receive very little protection indeed against their 

 deadly enemies, the fire and the man who sets it. 

 That taxation in these new districts must be high 

 is unavoidable, for all the public improvements 

 which older regions need merely keep in repair 

 must here be created out of nothing. But in 

 justice the benefits ought to be extended to all 

 property which shares in the burden. Much of 

 the expense incurred is also due to mere want of 

 business skill, looseness of methods, and sometimes 

 to corruption. Money so squandered of course 

 goes into the pockets of the residents, as officials 

 and contractors, while most of it comes out of the 

 treasury of the non-resident lumbermen, who on 

 their part spend thousands of dollars in wages and 

 for supplies to the very people who so unfairly 

 bleed them. 



The excessive burden of taxes resting upon the 

 woodlands, both stocked and denuded, cannot fail 

 to be a very serious hindrance to successful silvi- 

 cultural forestry in all those States where methods 

 similar to that described above prevail. But unfor- 

 tunately the problem how those methods of taxation 

 can be improved is very difficult of solution. A 

 radical relief can be obtained by the forest interests 



