272 THE FORESTER. December, 



the general praise given to European methods of forest management and the frequent 

 and strenuous, but utterly impracticable, advice to apply them in the forest of North 

 America. To very many of the men upon whom the introduction of forestry in the 

 forest depended and still depends, this was a complete barrier, for it made forestry seem 

 unworthy of even the most casual consideration. But these were mere temporary ob- 

 stacles to a true understanding of forestry and marked what may have been inevitable 

 stages of its progress. Another and a worthier point of view has been that of the 

 effect of forests upon climate, a subject of which, it must be confessed, we know com- 

 paratively little. To-day this subject is largely replaced in general discussion by the 

 effect of forests on water supply, with which we are better acquainted. This, at last, 

 is one of the real and vital issues with which true forestry is concerned." 



But it is only one of them. The vast material progress which, since 1865, has dis- 

 tinguished the United States among all the nations of the world, would never have been 

 achieved without the great resources in timber which we have been able to command. 

 In spite of the enormous development of the use of metals in this country, our material 

 civilization is still distinctly founded on the use of wood. If we had not had an abund- 

 ance of wood from the beginning of our life as a nation until the present day, the 

 United States would not now be first in the family of nations in wealth and in food- 

 producing power. Whether or not it is true that republics are ungrateful to their great 

 men, it certainly is a fact that their citizens are careless of the resources to which their 

 prosperity is due. That great wealth finally tends to prodigality is an axiom in human 

 nature, whose illustration can nowhere be found better than in the treatment of the 

 forest resources of the United States by its citizens. It is not without interest to note 

 that the first settlers in New England, with the vast stretches of unexplored wilder- 

 ness before them, and a body of standing timber to di'aw upon whose amount they 

 could not even reckon, took immediate steps to prohibit the waste of wood and the 

 destruction of forests. It was only later, when a knowledge of the vastness of their 

 timber resources led to recklessness, that the indiscriminate destruction of forests began. 

 Still later came the second effort toward forest protection, in which we are still engaged. 



It has not been wholly due to recklessness or thoughtless haste to be rich that the 

 destruction of vast areas of forests has occurred in the United States. Economic rea- 

 sons have had immense influence and one of the chief of these is the question of taxes 

 on timberland. Referring to the unbearable weight of the taxes too often assessed on 

 uncut or cut-over timberlands, the article quoted above says with entire justice : 



" Hundreds of thousands of acres in the white-pine region, notably in Pennsylvania, 

 and in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota, have been cut over, abandoned, sold for 

 taxes, and finally reduced by fire to a useless wilderness because of the shortsighted 

 policy of heavy taxation. To lay heavy taxes on timber land is to set a premium on 

 forest destruction, a premium that is doing more than any other single factor to hinder 

 the spread of conservative lumbering among the owners of large bodies of timber land. 

 Not only does this policy lead to the destruction of the forest, but it reduces eventually 

 the sums raised by taxation. Devastated lands are valueless, and therefore can not be 

 assessed at anything like their former rates. Then follows a reduction in the sums 

 raised, and then a higher tax rate for the rest of the real property in the region ; and so, 

 by a roundabout but certain road, the chickens come home to roost, and the men who 

 invited the destruction of the timber that should have made and kept them prosperous 

 have to pay some part at least of the penalty of their shortsightedness. 



" It does not change such facts as these to explain how the heavy taxes happened to 

 be assessed. It is true that the temptation to tax nonresident owners is very great; that 

 companies are often made to suffer for their local unpopularity, and that the burden of 

 building and maintaining roads and bridges and court-houses in sparsely settled coun- 

 tries bears heavily on their people. But when every allowance has been made, the 

 fact still remains that heavy taxes are responsible for the barrenness of thousands of 



