Forestry and Taxation 221 



for lumber, but rather to timber-lots and parks where 

 the trees are preserved as a protection to the climate 

 and physiographic conditions. In fact, the preamble 

 to the law intimates such an intention. It does not 

 help us, therefore, to solve the difficulties we are 

 discussing in regard to forestry as a business. 



Sometimes it is proposed that persons planting 

 and maintaining trees on their lands shall be exempt 

 from taxes on them. This is, like the Pennsylvania 

 plan, applicable rather to cases where forests should 

 be preserved for reasons other than lumber produc- 

 tion. It is particularly useful on the treeless plains, 

 where farmers ought to be encouraged to plant 

 timber belts. In effect it is a bounty on tree plant- 

 ing and suffers from many of the faults of the 

 bounty system. It is difficult to prevent people 

 from making a mere pretence of maintaining a 

 growing forest, when in reality they are but trying 

 to escape taxation on their pasture lands. The 

 United States for a number of years offered a quar- 

 ter section of land in the treeless section to any one 

 who would undertake to plant a certain number of 

 acres with trees and care for them ; but the frauds 

 growing out of this " tree-claim " law were so glar- 

 ing, and the results in the way of establishing forests 

 on the western plains were so small, that the law 

 was repealed. There is danger that laws exempting 

 tree plantations from taxes may have similar bad 

 results. A total exemption of forest lands used for 

 lumber production would, of course, be a radical 

 cure of all evils growing out of taxation, and it is 



