GETTING EVIDENCE ON FORESTRY NEEDS 



597 



Formulation of a state taxation system which does not 

 compel the timber holder to cut his trees as rapidly as pos- 

 sible in order to safeguard his profit was advocated by 

 Northwest lumbermen in the two-day conference at 

 Seattle. 



Leading lumbermen of Washington, which state an- 

 nually cuts more timber than any other in the Union, 

 scored the present taxation system as forcing lumber- 

 men to sacrifice their holdings, and preventing refor- 

 estation and conservation. These burdens are not only 

 true in Washington, but in other states with large timber 

 resources, they asserted. They declared that private en- 

 terprise cannot affcrcl to reforest and wait 50 to 60 

 years for returns under the present system, and that 

 unless restrictive measures are removed the federal gov- 

 ernment and state must take up the burden. 



The British Columbia yield tax system, which pro- 

 tects the holder of timber lands, was praised, and pre- 

 vailing sentiment favored a similar measure in timber 

 states of this country. 



Testifying to the harmfulness of the present taxation 

 laws. State Senator Alex Poison said that in his county, 

 a typical example, the tax rate on timberlands has in- 

 creased from seven to eight hundred per cent. This 

 means that the taxes gradually confiscate the land. He 

 favored the Canadian system of imposing a fixed charge, 

 say $125 a section, with the government receiving stump- 

 age when the timber is cut. He said he believed private 

 owners would take care of reforestation if they were 

 financially able to do so. 



Professors from the College of Forestry at the Uni- 

 versity of Washington, Seattle, asserted that with proper 

 reforestation the Pacific Northwest could cut two and 

 one-half times as much timber as last year without dimin- 

 ishing the supply. In other words, the country could' 

 draw on this section for approximately 25,000,000,000 

 beard feet a year as a permanent output. 



Reforestation and protection of green crops can be 

 effectively carried out at a cost of about $3 or $4 an 

 acre, annually, was the gist of testimony. 



It was brought out that the stumbling block in the 

 way of changing the present system is the making good 

 of the immediate tax loss the state would suffer if the 

 annual collection system were changed. 



"Lumbernen should organize to exploit their inter- 

 ests," was the keynote of testimony from O. M. Butler, 

 head of the federal forest products laboratory at Madi- 

 son, Wisconsin. "The Federal Government is spending 

 $57,000,000 for research and education, but only ont-half 

 of one per cent is being used for lumber research." 



That 1,500,000 additional acres of land would now 

 be producing timber in Western Oregon and Washington 

 had it not been for the ravages of forest fires, was among 

 the statistics produced before the forestry conference 

 at Portland. 



George H. Cecil, United States District Forester, em- 

 phasized the menace of fires in their relation to the future 



timber supply and supplied the figures as to the destruc- 

 tion to date. 



"Besides killing outright all of the merchantable tim- 

 ber on millions of acres, fires have caused untold dam- 

 age by killing trees here and there and injuring others, 

 with the result of greatly depreciating the commercial 

 value and the volume of the forests so fire-scourged," he 

 said. 



Reforestation in the wake of the logging operations and 

 of the fires was taken up and dwelt upon in detail by the 

 various witnesses and members of the committee. The 

 planting of young trees at an average of 2,000,000 per 

 year for the next 75 years was advocated by Dr. Hugh 

 P. Baker, of New York, a member of the national com- 

 mittee, and secretary of the American Pulp and Paper 

 Association. Dr. Baker produced figures to the effect 

 that the normal timber consumption in the country 

 amounts to a cut of 56,000,000,000 feet, to which he 

 added firewood consumption of about 110,000,000 feet. 



David L. Goodwillie, of Chicago, chairman of the com- 

 mittee, dwelt upon the necessity of federal and state co- 

 operation in reforestation work. 



"Fire protection and the losses here must be put fairly 

 before Congress. When we can create the sentiment, the 

 proper protection will come," he declared. 



E. T. Allen, secretary of the Western Forestry and 

 Conservation Association, discussed the relation of taxes 

 to the diminishing timber supply. 



"Mounting taxes make it impossible for the timber 

 owner to hold his timber as a long-time investment," he 

 argued. "The consequence is the cutting in excess of the 

 demand with the resulting low prices during periods of 

 light demand. Prices have become so low that the inferior 

 logs and species are left in the woods." 



Dr. Henry S. Drinker, of Merion, Pennsylvania, tax 

 expert for the committee, urged the yield tax as the solu- 

 tion for the lumber producer. Discussion of this point 

 brought out that opinion was inclined to believe that 

 while the yield tax might place a heavy burden on the 

 owners who have been paying taxes for many years, it 

 was an improvement over the present situation. Robert 

 E. Smith, Portland banker, urged that the yield tax would 

 offer encouragement to the owners of cutover lands on 

 which young trees were growing and who would not have 

 to pay taxes until the timber was finally cut. 



TN 1 91 3 the United States imported into France common 

 * woods to the equivalent value of $5,000,000 as esti- 

 mated by the French Customs, and precious woods valued 

 at $720,000. The first three months of 1921, total value 

 of common woods from United States was estimated by 

 French Customs as $500,000, at year's average rate of 

 exchange. This is one-third of valuation of same period 

 in 1920, which was much below pre-war trade. 



IvrOODS imported into Belgium from the United States 

 '' the first quarter of 1921 were valued at 2,839,638 

 francs. 



