888 A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



where now it is the policy to try to keep on the tax roll land unfit for 

 private ownership, would also automatically put much land in State 

 and county hands. A legislative program for the expansion of na- 

 tional, State, and other public forests would reveal how shaky private 

 ownership is in some regions and would accelerate the transition from 

 private to public ownership. 



Whereas an increase in property taxes would tend to increase rever- 

 sion, lowering taxes or fixing of taxes on growing timber, as has been 

 done in some States, tends on the other hand to stabilize private 

 ownership for at least the better lands. 



Public assistance in forest protection or other measures of cooper- 

 ation or subsidy that make forest growing more attractive to the 

 owner are factors that would militate against the present high rate of 

 reversion. On the other hand the withdrawal of such public aids to 

 private timber growing as are now given would have the effect of ac- 

 celerating land abandonment. 



A general healthier economic condition in the forest industries 

 would give timberland owners a confidence in the future, now lack- 

 ing, that would increase interest in timber growing; this is to be 

 expected in the long swing, but is apparently not an imminent factor 

 in tax delinquency trends. 



All in all it appears that tax delinquency and reversion can be 

 expected to continue unabated for some years in the regions where 

 they are now prevalent. An aroused public consciousness of the 

 evils of the situation will hasten action to stem the tide of reversion 

 or to correct its evils by properly taking care of the " no-man's land". 

 With improvement in economic conditions for timber growing and 

 acceptance of forestry principles, one of the basic causes for delin- 

 quency will gradually disappear, and in the rather distant future, 

 with a wider distribution of public ownership, a more stable holding 

 of private forest lands may be expected. Some States and regions 

 will naturally work the problem out sooner than others, but if all 

 regions begin at once, the solution of the serious problem of stabilizing 

 ownership will be reached none too soon. 



CONCLUSIONS 



The great instability of forest ownership in the United States, 

 which in some regions can be properly characterized as a breakdown 

 of private ownership, points to the conclusion that there is a malad- 

 justment of forest ownership an unwise division between public and 

 private property. In the western regions ^ this has been the out- 

 growth of the public-land laws which put in private hands, within 

 the space of a very few years, a great acreage that was not ready for 

 economic use. The problem is basically one of correcting the defects 

 in the distribution of forest ownership. 



The situation has been intensified by the policies of the forest 

 industries under the duress of economic conditions which have 

 resulted in cutting the commercial forests without thought for the 

 future and leaving a large part of their original area' in an unpro- 

 ductive or deteriorated condition. Unfavorable tax systems and a 

 mistaken idea of the future value of the land for agriculture have in 

 some regions contributed to the situation. An acute risk of fire and 

 the burning over by unchecked fires of great areas have made the 

 land still more unattractive for permanent private ownership. The 



