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estate and assesses the same crop of timber year after year does 

 precisely this thing. He assesses land and crop for the owner of a 

 woodlot and forest, while for all other farmers he assesses only the 

 land. 



Let the State pass a few simple laws; provide for the protection 1 

 of forest property as we provide for other property; prevent con- 

 fiscation under the guise of taxation; stop forcing its poor tax lands 

 on the market, and go ahead with a good example on its own lands, 

 and instead of holding them in a waste land condition protect them 

 and grow timber. 



A. T. HADLEY, President Yale University : We have it in our 

 power to make intelligent forestry by individuals more profitable. 

 The margin between business that succeeds and business that fails is 

 a narrow one, and by just covering that margin by differences in tax 

 laws, by differences in protective laws, by laws for the prevention of 

 fires, we can make profitable an industry which the public needs, but 

 which today is unprofitable. 



JAMES 0. DAVIDSON, Governor of Wisconsin : It is to be hoped that 

 laws will be passed encouraging owners to cut timber conservatively 

 under forestry regulations, rather than oblige them to cut as quickly 

 as possible to escape the injustice of taxation. 



PROFESSOR F. G. MILLER, University of Washington: Next to fire 

 the most serious handicap to the progress of forestry is our unjust 

 method of forest taxation. Laying as we do a yearly tax on both the 

 growing crop and the land, the burden of taxation makes the holding 

 of land for a second crop prohibitive as far as the private owner is 

 concerned. 



The farmer pays a yearly tax on his land, and a tax on his crop 

 each time he harvests one. This is usually annually. However, if 

 through drought, insect invasion or other misfortune he loses his 

 crop, he is not called upon to pay a tax upon it. 



SENATOR EEED SMOOT, of Utah, Chairman Section of Forests, 

 National Conservation Commission: One of the urgent tasks before 

 the States is the immediate passage of tax laws which will enable 

 the private owner to protect and keep productive under forest those 

 lands suitable only for forest growth. In our discussion in com- 

 mittee meeting there was a question raised by a member present as 

 to this recommendation, claiming that it would encourage great 

 monopolies in securing larger holdings of timber, if an annual tax 

 was not required on the timber itself. I have studied this question 

 in foreign lands, particularly in Germany and Switzerland, and I find 

 that the result has been exactly the opposite. It is a short-sighted 

 policy which invites, through excessive taxation, the destruction of 

 the only crop which steep mountain lands will produce profitably. 



