THE FOREST 197 



In the southern part of the country pulp mills depend a great 

 deal on these farm woodlots for their supplies. The question is: 

 Are the farm woodlots being cut in such a way that there will 

 always be a timber supply and will the mills buy enough timber 

 to support the farmer? 



THE FORESTS AND TAXES 



In most states, forest land is taxed according to the value 

 of the timber on the land. Thus if you have an acre of good 

 timber, the tax will be high. If you cut every stick of good tmv 

 ber, you will get your money back and at the same time the 

 tax will be reduced. If you just cut the right trees you will 

 get a very little money back, but your taxes will remain high. 

 In other words, the man who tries to grow timber or practice 

 sustained yield forest management is penalised by having to 

 pay more in taxes over a longer period of time than the man 

 who buys a stand of mature timber and cuts it right away. 

 This tax situation is very similar to the problem of taxing 

 mineral land. (See page 245.) 



Several state legislatures have become aware of the effect of 

 this kind of taxation on forest conservation. Various systems 

 have been worked out to make the tax an aid to conservation 

 rather than a destructive measure. One such system is the 

 adjusted property tax. By this method, each year that an 

 owner of forest property keeps his timber rather than sells it, 

 the tax is reduced. Thus if a man plants trees he knows that 

 the taxes on his timber, so long as he does not cut it, will grow 

 less and less. Therefore he will have a good reason to let his 

 timber reach maturity before he cuts it. The second system is 

 the deferred timber tax. According to this, the owner of forest 

 land pays no tax until the timber is cut. The trouble with this 

 is that in areas in which there is a lot of forest land there will 

 be no tax revenues for many years. A third plan is called the 

 differential property tax. This system puts a tax on timber' 



