REGULATION OF TIMBER CUTTING 



289 



for the public safety ; and I should ex- 

 pect that such regulations as that would 

 be maintained in any state. 



Whether any effectual method of 

 regulation can be devised which will 

 come within the principle above sug- 

 gested, is a matter for experts in for- 

 estry, assisted perhaps by lawyers who 

 are in sympathy with the policy. Im- 

 posing actual hardship and loss upon 

 owners is not to be expected or de- 

 sired. Upon this legislative question 

 the statutes of Maine, even, remain si- 

 lent. Problems of administration are 

 unsolved. At a hearing before a leg- 

 islative committee on a bill to pro- 

 hibit cutting below a certain limit, an 

 intelligent witness humorously defined 

 the police power as providing a police- 

 man for every woodlot. His advice 

 to the farmers to oppose the bill was en- 

 thusiastically adopted. Enforcing reg- 

 ulations involves minute supervision by 

 state agents. Rural communities re- 

 sent official interference with their af- 

 fairs. The necessity must be vital to 

 recommend such a system to a legis- 

 lature of practical men. 



Assuming that effective regulation 

 will involve loss to the owner, a plan 

 of compensation through a sensible ad- 

 justment of taxation, designed to en- 

 rourage timber raising, appears at- 

 tractive. The complications incident to 

 such a plan present great difficulties, 

 perhaps impossible of solution ; but the 

 subject may be worth considering. 



Taxation to-day, in my opinion, is 

 the greatest menace to forest preserva- 

 tion. If I may be permitted to digress 

 for a minute, I want to say just a word 

 about this question of taxation, for the 

 reason that I hinted at, and that was 

 hinted at by the voice from the women's 

 clubs. 



One principle is absolutely sound 

 we all know it, and what we have to do 

 is to make everybody else know it 

 and that is, that the annual taxation 

 on a crop which is constantly increas- 

 ing in value each year means confisca- 

 tion of that property more certainly 



than any state regulation which I have 

 talked about. I say that nobody can 

 afford to plant and raise a crop that 

 takes fifty or a hundred years to ma- 

 ture and pay equal and proportionate 

 taxes during that time ; because it will 

 carry the value of that crop way beyond 

 what it has hitherto been supposed it 

 was worth. 



What should be done is to tax the land 

 at a practical nominal valuation, more 

 for the sake of keeping it on the books 

 than anything else ; that is the proper 

 method, such as $i an acre or even less ; 

 or at the prevailing rate applicable to 

 all land. This method is simple and 

 should be adopted. 



I have an almost wicked desire to 

 impose the tax when the timber is cut 

 at so high a rate that they will never 

 cut it. But, taking a practical view, 

 it is my idea that that rate should be 

 fixed at a point which will cause the 

 owner to pay his proportion of the pub- 

 lic burden of taxation on that class of 

 his property lessened to a fair propor- 

 tion by the benefits which he has con- 

 ferred upon society by leaving the tim- 

 ber growing on our hillsides. 



To many intelligent men the solu- 

 tion of the conservation problem ap- 

 pears to be in state or federal owner- 

 ship. Some states, notably Pennsyl- 

 vania and New York, have embarked 

 upon this policy, and notwithstanding 

 powerful opposition, the idea of federal 

 adoption of the same principle is gain- 

 ing ground. If the public good re- 

 quires that the forest growth upon our 

 mountain slopes should be preserved, 

 for the benefit of navigation upon our 

 rivers, or for local reasons, the nation 

 or the state owes a solemn duty to its 

 citizens to preserve them by the most 

 effectual means, which is unquestion- 

 ably through purchase. The obvious 

 use of a forest as a source of timber 

 supply bears a varying proportion to 

 its benefits to the public health and pros- 

 perity. Owning such timber lands, the 

 government may proceed, unhampered 

 by private rights, to manage its prop- 



