minium 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



VOL. XXVI MAY 1920 



I!illl!!!!lllll!!lll!llllll!l!l!lllll!!li!llll!lll!llllim 



NO. 317 



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EDITORIAL 



WHAT A FOREST POLICY HAS MEANT TO FRANCE 



T? RANCE has had a well defined forest policy for over 

 * a hundred years. The United States is now begin- 

 ning to wake up to the fact that one is needed here. 

 What a forest policy has meant to France is indicated in 

 an extract from a letter sent by Leo W. Myers, an Ameri- 

 can forester in France, to Professor J. W. Tourney, of 

 Yale, which says : "It is only with the acceptance of 

 a rigid forest policy as practised by European countries, 

 wherein the perpetual production stabilizes the prices, 

 that a permanent forest trade can successfully develop 

 along permanent lines. There is no greater concrete ex- 

 ample of ecomomic gain in the acceptance of a rigid 

 policy than that of the French forests. The writer, hav- 

 ing served as an officer in the American Engineer Corps 

 cutting in the French forests and later making an in- 



vestigative economic study of European lumber prob- 

 lems, is in a position after more than two years in Europe 

 to realize the lumber conditions. It is with full knowl- 

 edge of the facts that it is said that France supplied the 

 Allied Armies for five years with construction lumber 

 from the southern pineries, the Pyrenees mountains, the 

 fir and spruce forests of the Jura and Vosges and the 

 hardwood forests of the Midi. France is likewise at 

 the present day supplying lumber in sufficient quantities 

 to take the place of American lumber that, would, under 

 more normal conditions, have been imported. American 

 lumber men should accept the forest policy that begins 

 with the growing seed so that it will insure a permanent 

 production." 



TAXING FOREST LAND 



POOREST land is, ordinarily, in this country taxed 

 -*- annually the same as any other property. This 

 works a hardship on the timber owner, who gets an 

 income only when the timber is cut. It often forces 

 him to cut before maturity because additional taxes will' 

 eat up all his profit. In case the timber is burned, he 

 has a double loss, the loss of his ultimate income and 

 the loss of taxes paid to the State on timber which he 

 never harvests. 



The following application of the law in the State of 

 Utah shows where it is unjust and why private indi- 

 viduals cannot hold land for the growing of timber 

 alone: The average assessed valuation of timber lands 

 in Weber county, Utah, is $4.00 per acre. The assess- 

 ment is 14 mills on the dollar. In 100 years this tax, 

 compounded at 3 per cent annually, amounts to $36.51 



per acre, requiring at least twelve thousand board feet 

 per acre (stumpage value of $3.00 per thousand) to meet 

 taxes alone. 



The United States is practically the only large 

 nation which has not made reforms in its timber tax 

 laws. Six States Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, 

 New York, Pennsylvania and Michigan- have made 

 some advance, the Connecticut and Massachusetts laws 

 being by far the best. The latter provides for a ground 

 tax on bare land paid annually, and an income tax, paid 

 when the timber reaches maturity. This law is prac- 

 tically ideal, better even than an income tax alone paid 

 when the timber is cut, since the latter would not protect 

 the public treasury in case an owner held his timber 

 indefinitely for speculative values. 



FUTURE FOREST POLICY FOR NEW ENGLAND 



T^ ULLY 6o per cent of the land area of New England 

 -*- is forested and this percentage has increased during 

 the last 30 years. In spite of its early settlement and 

 relatively flense population, which is 106 inhabitants per 

 square mile, and for the three southern states 360 per 

 square mile, New England still remains a wooded region. 

 Forest, waterpower -and agricultural lands constitute 



her principal natural resources. Lumbering, under which 

 wood for pulp is the most important single product, 

 manufacturing, agricultural pursuits and the business 

 built around the summer tourist and sportsman form the 

 four leading industries. These are all interested in the 

 forest resources. 

 Lumbering is directly dependent upon the forests for 



