Conservation of Lumber Supply 353 



tury on the same crop, must be radically changed and the 

 standing crop of timber must not be taxed, but a reasonable 

 tax on stumpage may be placed on the timber when cut for 

 the benefit particularly of the local county in which the tim- 

 ber is located, and which tax should be paid to the county 

 for any amount cut in that county whether manufactured 

 there or elsewhere. All other taxation on the lumber cut 

 and other taxation pertaining to the lumber production 

 should be merged into this stumpage tax, which may be made 

 to perpetually furnish the country a larger revenue than 

 under the old method, but in such way that it can be charged 

 up as part of the cost of the timber. And with this change 

 in taxation a better method of organizing timber and lumber 

 companies should be enforced in such way and under such 

 provisions of organization and management and control, that 

 the government and the public will be satisfied that it is not 

 a trust form organized to plunder the people by means of 

 extravagant prices. It is evident that higher prices for lum- 

 ber, more especially on the lower brades, but in general on 

 the whole mill run, must be maintained in order to make it 

 practicable, or we might say possible, to conserve the tim- 

 ber, and which for the next perhaps ten or fifteen years 

 would make lumber moderately higher priced than at pres- 

 ent, but not excessive compared to other commodities and 

 products. And at the end of 20 or 30 years, this process, if 

 the whole or a large part of the remaining forests could be 

 placed in such aggregations and under the best practicable 

 form, the prices of lumber for the next 30 to 50 years would 

 probably not be one-half of what they will b( without a prac- 

 tical process of this kind. 



A tract of timber of say 250,000 acres of the heavy timber 

 of the coast would furnish a stock sufficient to furnish a hun- 

 dred million a year of lumber for a century, or nearly that. 

 By reforesting and protection to the fullest extent, there will, 

 at the end of that time, be timber standing, that when cut 

 over from the same point of beginning as was practiced the 

 previous century, that before it is cut over the second time 

 will produce for this second cutting as much, or more lumber, 

 than was taken ofif the first cutting, and at the same time 



