A NATIONAL PLAN FOE AMERICAN FOEESTRY 887 



county tax-reyerted lands are being held by the county with the 

 purposeful policy of forest production. 



Provisions for acquiring and managing State forests are found in 

 many other States as well, but the above are the outstanding exam- 

 ples of legislation to put tax-forfeited lands under permanent forest 

 management. 



POSSIBLE FUTURE TRENDS IN TAX REVERSION OF 

 FOREST LAND 



The statistics of tax reversion are too incomplete to warrant mak- 

 ing a mathematical prediction of the trend. Irrespective, however, 

 of the acceleration of delinquency during the depression, the facts 

 all point to an increase in land abandonment in the regions where 

 the ownership is now unstable. Many of the factors which have 

 in the past, and are now, creating tax delinquency and reversion are 

 as potent as ever and in some regions certainly more so. Very prompt 

 and radical action would have to be taken to nullify these factors. 



In some regions there is an overburden of forest lands in private 

 ownership; private capital took upon itself the ownership of an enor- 

 mous amount of timberland merely to exploit the commercial stump- 

 age with no contemplation of holding the lands permanently or 

 managing them for continuous production; many people believe that 

 there is much forest land that never should have gone into private 

 hands. This basic factor of improper distribution of forest ownership 

 is a continuing cause for the breakdown of private ownership. 



It has already been shown that another basic cause for the abroga- 

 tion of ownership is the destruction of forest productivity in the process 

 of logging without thought for reforestation. Great areas in this 

 condition have already gone delinquent, but even greater areas are 

 still on the tax roll. In certain regions there is every reason to believe 

 that an increasing acreage in this category will become "new public 

 domain'* unless very drastic steps are taken to stem the tide of tax 

 reversion. So long as devastating logging continues, there will in- 

 evitably be lack of interest in permanent land ownership. 



Delinquency of the lands which are in reasonably productive condi- 

 tion is affected by many conditions. With a diminishing timber sup- 

 ply, and with research, education, and extension teaching in forestry 

 there is an increasing realization that timber growing will pay. In re- 

 gions where the conditions favor early marketable yields, growth is 

 good, and protection and other carrying costs are low, there will 

 probably be a trend toward stabilized private ownership, but the out- 

 look is that it will be slow in coming under the present regime. 



There is a growing interest in timber growing by private owners. 

 The very conception of sustained-yield forestry, which a few owners 

 are adopting, presupposes permanent ownership. Selective logging 

 will undoubtedly be practiced more widely in the future. This in 

 itself insures land values that encourage permanent ownership. 



There is much that the public might do to affect the stability or 

 instability of ownership. What the public in the several States will 

 do is problematical. A strict enforcement of the delinquency laws 

 would throw an immense acreage into the new public domain that is 

 now in uncertain status. A policy of allowing tne public to take title, 



108342 33 vol. 1 57 



