10 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



that every day these trees stand they are earning, from the 

 public, the right to grow by the public benefits which they 

 confer. 



If, however, you still insist upon payment of full taxes for 

 timber land, then it would be equity to defer payment until 

 the owner converts his timber into cash by turning it into 

 lumber. It would then come in the shape of an income tax, 

 which is not wholly unknown in this country, and would be 

 paid when the owner had lost his claim upon the public by re- 

 moving the trees which earned the right to grow untaxed so 

 long as they stood. 



These considerations come upon us as we consider the 

 question from a legal and a commercial standpoint. There is, 

 however, still another aspect of the case which may in the 

 near future confer value upon even your young growing 

 forests. We will suppose you own a body of land which is 

 unfit for agriculture, and is yielding you nothing. I do not 

 know of anything which could be worse than this, unless it 

 should be an actual expense to you. Suppose you plant that 

 land in white pine. It will be a century before any return will 

 be yielded. It is easy to conceive of a class of investments 

 which will yield a safe return of interest and principal only 

 after a long term of years. Yet because of the certainty of a 

 return these investments would have a value which increases 

 in proportion as the period of maturity approaches. If there 

 is any timber in the world which has a value beyond a doubt 

 it is white pine, because it fills a place which is peculiarly its 

 own. There is no more danger that the market will ever have 

 a surplus of white pine than there is that the world will ever 

 have too much virtue. The supply of either will never equal 

 the demand. It is my opinion that there are thousands of 

 acres of land in this State which might be planted in white pine 

 to advantage. 



But if its maturity is too far in the future, suppose we con- 

 sider another tree: the Carolina poplar, for example. Taking 

 its average growth on all soils, I do not know of another tree 

 adapted to our eastern slope which grows so rapidly. 



You may put it into almost any soil that I know of as a 

 cutting a foot long, and in three years you will have a rooted 

 tree six feet high. From that period on for twenty years on 

 soil of average quality it will increase rapidly in height, and 

 add an inch to its diameter annually. But a few years ago it 



