800 A NATIONAL PLAN FOE AMERICAN FORESTRY 



land that by no stretch of the imagination will come back into forest 

 growth without planting and which appear hopeless for any use in a 

 large way except the production of timber. It seems that if such 

 lands are to be made productive at all, if they are worth saving, the 

 State must boldly take the initiative in their reclamation. This may 

 be by liberally subsidizing the private owners or by acquiring and 

 planting the lands itself. Michigan has been acquiring and planting 

 such lands, but comparatively speaking only at a snail's pace; New 

 York has resolutely decided to acquire and is engaged in the program 

 of acquiring marginal and submarginal farm land, which is being 

 planted. There are vast areas in the Southern States of cut-over and 

 burned-over land that apparently will come back to productivity 

 only if planted, and large areas of the same type of land are developing 

 in some far western States. Will the States meet this problem are 

 they financially able to do so? It appears very doubtful. 



The question naturally arises as to whether all such land should be 

 planted, whether it will pay. No one can answer that question. 

 Viewed in the light of present timber values and the probable growth 

 of timber, it seems that planting cannot be justified on much of the 

 poorer and relatively inaccessible lands if the first crop of timber only 

 is considered. The mere clothing of these lands with trees, however, 

 might have tremendous significance in the future. A resource would 

 be there that if correctly managed could be made self-perpetuating 

 and the means of sustaining local industries and communities. To 

 pass up this undertaking on the ground that it is uneconomic is the 

 easy way out of a real problem; it may not prove to be the best way. 



There are possibilities of developments in nursery practice, in plant- 

 ing machinery, and in field technique that may make the planting 

 job much cheaper than it has been. These would make the task 

 ahead of the States much more simple; for after all the extent to 

 which the States themselves are likely to engage in or subsidize forest 

 planting is going to be governed by its cost. 



AID THROUGH SPECIAL TAXATION MEASURES 



The subject of forest taxation is too intricate to be dealt with 

 comprehensively in the present section of this report. All that is 

 necessary here is to indicate very briefly its place in the development 

 and general scheme of State policies of forestry. While an appraisal 

 of the potentialities of changed methods of taxing forest properties 

 as a means of bringing about more private forestry is essential to a 

 size-up of the task which public agencies will have to assume, and 

 while taxation cannot be omitted from an outline of the stage of 

 progress which the States have attained in their forestry effort, it is 

 not possible to discuss in detail here the efficacy of tax laws as a 

 means of promoting forestry or the practical workings and com- 

 parative merits of the various laws hitherto passed. 



The following historical summary of the legislation is taken from 

 Progress Report No. 16 of the Forest Taxation Inquiry of the Forest 

 Service, issued January 1, 1932. 



Forest tax legislation in the course of its development in America has passed 

 through two fairly well-defined stages. At the outset tax relief was used as a 

 means of interesting landowners in tree culture, evidently without any very 

 clear program based on fundamental principles of forestry or of taxation. The 

 movement at this stage started with a law passed by the territory of Nebraska 



