A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 801 



in 1861 granting exemption to landowners who would plant and care for stands 

 of forest trees fulfilling certain conditions. Between then and 1886, similar laws 

 were passed by nine other Prairie and Western States, namely, Wisconsin and 

 Iowa (1868), Dakota, then a territory (1869), Idaho (1875), Washington and 

 Wyoming (1877), Colorado (1881), New Mexico (1882), and Utah (1886). 

 Before this wave of exemption laws had gotten well under way, Kansas started 

 another movement of similar import by a law enacted in 1868 offering bounties 

 for tree planting, which up to 1890 was followed by three of the States which had 

 already enacted exemption laws and four others, namely, Missouri (1870), 

 Minnesota (1871), Nevada (1873), Illinois (1874), Nebraska (1879), territory of 

 Dakota (1885), and Wyoming (1890). Upon being admitted to statehood (1890) 

 North Dakota and South Dakota reenacted the territorial law of 1885. and later 

 enacted bounty laws, in 1905 and 1909 respectively. 



Almost simultaneously with this western movement, the report 

 goes on to point out, tax concessions to promote tree planting 

 appeared in the East, beginning with Maine's exemption law of 1872. 



By 1878 three other New England States, namely, Massachusetts, Connecticut, 

 and Rhode Island had passed similar laws. Vermont later (1904) passed such 

 a law, followed by Alabama (1907) and New York (1912). Pennsylvania (1887) 

 and New Hampshire (1903) adopted the rebate, * *. Massachusetts 



(1908) and New Hampshire (1915) granted exemption to those who would leave 

 the entire management of their lands to the State for a period of years. Indiana 

 (1899) adopted the plan of reducing the taxable valuation to the sum of $1 an 

 acre which plan was also adopted by Iowa (1906) and Louisiana (1910). Hawaii 

 (1892 and 1903) enacted forest exemption laws which were designed to prevent 

 overgrazing and protect the watersheds, and which have been widely applied. 



In general, the exemption, bounty, and rebate laws gradually demonstrated 

 their inability to accomplish any substantial results. At the same time knowl- 

 edge of the broader aspects of forestry and its economic implications was increas- 

 ing. Increasing attention was being given to the relation of taxation to the 

 practice of forestry. Out of these conditions arose the second stage of forest 

 tax legislation, in which the yield tax occupies the center of the picture. Begin- 

 ning with the Michigan farm wood lot act in 1911, 17 States have enacted tax 

 legislation based on the yield-tax principle, the others being New York (1912), 

 Vermont, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania (1913), Massachusetts (1914), Maine 

 (1921), Alabama (1923), Mississippi (1924) , 4 Ohio (1925), Louisiana and Ken- 

 tucky (1926), Minnesota and Wisconsin (1927), Idaho and Oregon (1929), and 

 Washington (1931). Michigan (in 1925) enacted a second yield tax law, which 

 was applicable to commercial forests. 



During this same period also much legislation of the same type as that passed 

 in the earlier period was enacted. New York in the same year that it passed its 

 yield tax law (1912) enacted provisions granting several degrees of exemption of 

 land and timber value for 30 and 35 year periods. Idaho (1917) passed a tax- 

 exemption law for planted lands. Louisiana (1920, 1922, and 1924) enacted a 

 series of changes in its original exemption law culminating in a pronounced cur- 

 tailment of the exemption privilege in 1922, followed by moderate liberalization 

 in 1924. Indiana (1921) reenacted and amplified its exemption law of 1899, 

 which in the meantime had been declared unconstitutional. New Hampshire 

 (1923) copied the 1922 Massachusetts law almost verbatim, save that constitu- 

 tional restrictions prevented the adoption of the yield tax as such. So, as an 

 alternative, the timber when cut was made subject to the ordinary personal 

 property tax of that year based on its value after felling instead of its stumpage 

 value. This virtually converted the Massachusetts type of yield-tax law into a 

 growing timber exemption law, with full ad valorem taxation of the bare land 

 value. Vermont (1923), likewise dissatisfied with the way its yield-tax law was 

 working, without repealing the old law, enacted a new law which provided for 

 the exemption of growing timber and the full-value taxation of the land, thus 

 duplicating in part the New Hampshire law, save that the exemption was limited 

 to a period of 30 years. Puerto Rico (1925) enacted a law reducing the taxable 

 valuation on planted lands to $1 per acre for a limited period, but a later (1930) 

 law provided for complete exemption for both planted and natural-growth forests 

 for an unlimited period. California (1926) adopted a constitutional amendment 

 exempting all immature forest trees from the property tax. Connecticut enacted 



4 This law was repealed in 1932, subsequent to the issue of the report from which the quotation is taken. 



