ii tract of land covered with valuable hemlock. For the purposes 

 of taxation this land was assessed at the rate of two dollars an acre, 

 then raised to four, then to six, when the owner protested. The fol- 

 lowing year it was assessed at eight dollars an acre. Protest made 

 was unavailing and the owner immediately put in mills, removed 

 the timber and allowed the county to take the land. 



The plea for increasing the tax was that the township depended 

 on that land for the money to spend on its roads. What was the 

 result? Removal of the timber left no tax for the roads, and gave 

 the county a large area of unproductive land. It was not solely the 

 payment of the taxes which drove the owner to remove the timber, 

 but because after paying the taxes he had no protection against 

 the fires which the State allows to go, year after year, unchecked. 

 Here is the proper place to call attention to the fact that it is no 

 longer true that fire does but little damage in green timber. The 

 time was when it was practically true. That time has passed, for 

 in this State so large a portion is already bare of trees, barren and' 

 sun-exposed, that evaporation removes the moisture from those areas, 

 and then from even the woods, until in seasons of ordinary summer 

 drought vigorous forests may be killed where they stand. One in- 

 stance of this, in Clearfield county, comes to mind now. Another 

 example was furnished three years ago in the southwestern part of 

 Wayne county, where a very valuable tract of hemlock, which wasi 

 specially guarded, was destroyed in spite of all the protection which 

 could be furnished. A condition so anomalous as this indicated 

 cannot endure in the larger intelligence of the near future. What 

 the remedy shall be is a question which merits, and doubtless will 

 receive, careful consideration from our legislators before long. It 

 will press for a solution.* 



A most important problem presents itself for consideration; 

 namely, that of forest reservations. Strip it of collateral ideas and 

 the fact at the bottom of the whole question is the State must 

 have a due proportion of woodland. It is an absolute condition upon 

 which not only our prosperity but the very protection of the surface 

 of the State depends. 



The first inquiry following this is: How can it be most surely, 

 speedily and economically produced, by the State itself dire'ctly own- 

 ing and directing the machinery, or by the State making it possible 

 for the citizen to do this? 



While it is true that in Pennsylvania local conditions will make 

 it to the advantage of the Commonwealth that the citizen should be- 

 come a timber producer and liimself see that it was guarded from 



* By act approved May 25, 1897, there is allowed a maximum tax rebate of forty-flve cents per acre 

 on not more than fifty acres to each farm property owner, providing there are fifty trees to the acre 

 which average eight Inches in diameter at six feet above the ground. 



