56 



sessed and taxed annually. By the time the products tax on young timber 

 assumes large proportions, the machinery for securing its collection would 

 be in good working order. 



Owners of wild, unimproved or cut-over lands, under this system, will 

 pay on the same assessed valuation as those who have left seed trees, young 

 timber and have planted or secured natural reproduction. Although the 

 latter property will constantly increase in value as the result of forestry, 

 there will be no increase in taxation which is not imposed equally upon 

 unimproved wild lands. Yet these forested lands will eventually bring 

 in the additional revenue of products taxes, besides furnishing employment 

 and raw material for the wood-using industries. 



Unless the public is willing to agree in advance to such a plan of tax- 

 ation for timber, no such inducement or guarantee is offered for proper 

 management, instead the owner of young timber maybe certain that the 

 assessor will raise the value of such lands because of his industry, long 

 before the trees can be cut, and by the time he can sell his crop, taxes 

 and interest will have absorbed far too great a part of his expected income. 



If there is anything unequitable in this universal but gradual substi- 

 tution of a products tax for the present property tax on standing timber it 

 does not appear on the surface. 



I promised you this would be a dry subject and now you see that I was 

 right. (Applause) 



MR. BOOKWALTER: I now take pleasure in presenting to you Mr. 

 Wilson Compton, who is secretary-manager of the National Lumber Man- 

 ufacturers' Association. His subject is the "Economic Aspect of State 

 Forests." (Applause) 



MR. WILSON COMPTON : Mr. Toastmaster, and ladies and gentlemen 

 of the Tri- State Forestry Conference. 



Governor Lowden, in his recent statement that the chief need, not only 

 of this country, but of the whole world is "economic equilibrium" has 

 furnished a slogan which is peculiarly pertinent to the public problem 

 with which three great states, in this conference, are grappling. Equi- 

 librium implies a balancing of opposing forces. In the world at large this 

 economic balance will be accomplished only through a general increase in 

 the production of useful commodities and by a readjustment of consumption 

 whereby there shall be more of the necessaries and fewer of the luxuries, 

 until normal human activities throughout the world shall have been re- 

 established. 



The supply of useful. commodities must be made more adequate to meet 

 the demand for them upon such terms as will enable all persons who 

 will work, to have a fair share of the fruits of their labor. A condition of 

 production and distribution, entirely out of normal equilibrium, is primarily 

 responsible for the prominent place in the news of the day which is oc- 

 cupied by the activities of misguided men, who, by only a wave of the 

 hand would accomplish a social state which the experience of the human 

 race has indicated can be accomplished only through centuries of gradual 

 evolution and development. 



The forests have had a large share in the world's industrial activity, 

 and will in the future contribute largely to the accomplishment of economic 



