tual value? Is this taxation or con- 

 fiscation? Suppose you have a twenty 

 acre lot of sugar beets and the assess- 

 or would hang around until the beets 

 are ripe and then figure: The land 

 is good; I assess it at $75 per acre, 

 and the crop is worth $75 more, so 

 that this property will stand at $150. 

 What would you say? But the assess- 

 or who assesses the timber as part of 

 the real 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. 

 To assess any ordinary farm at more 

 than $10 on the $1,000 here in Michi- 

 gan is to take part of the man's 

 wages. Treat the farmer who raises 

 timber like the farmer who raises 

 corn and we shall hear no more about 

 this taxation of forests, especially so 

 if the State quits shirking and tax- 

 dodging. 



But Why Don't the Men Who Got 

 the Crop of Timber Off the Land 

 Restore This to Forest? 



"Why should we farmers help to 

 better the things which others spoil- 

 ed and made money by it?" There are 

 several things to be said. The lum- 

 berman who cut the pine made busi- 



18 



