FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



January 



of the purposes of the reserves to bring 

 to them a practically unanimous sup- 

 port of the people in the states where 

 they are located. It should be the duty 

 of this Association in every way to fur- 

 ther this result. 



In submitting our annual report to 

 the members of this Association, it seems 

 desirable to first take up the matters of 

 general interest that were incomplete at 

 the time of our last annual meeting, and 

 thus make a more or less continuous 

 history of our activities in the forestry 

 movement. 



i . Of prime importance 

 Consolidation is the consolidation of 

 of Forest the forest work of the 



Work. federal government 



under one head. It is 

 hardly necessary to repeat that the pres- 

 ent division of the work between the 

 General Land Office, the U. S. Geolog- 

 ical Survey, and the Bureau of Forestry 

 is unsatisfactory, unscientific, and un- 

 economic. This condition is recognized 

 by all the parties concerned. The Pres- 

 ident, the Secretary of the Interior, the 

 Secretary of Agriculture, and the Com- 

 missioner of the General Land Office 

 have united in asking Congress to place 

 all forest work of the government in 

 charge of the Bureau of Forestry. This 

 Association, the National Irrigation 

 Congress at its meeting in Ogden, Utah, 

 last September, and many other organ- 

 izations have endorsed this proposed 

 consolidation, but as yet Congress has 

 failed to act. A bill is now pending in 

 Congress to accomplish the desired ob- 

 ject, and it is hoped that in view of the 

 unanimity of those in a position to judge 

 of its merits that the bill will pass at 

 this session. Of course the questions 

 arising in connection with the reserves 

 as to titles must continue to be adjudi- 

 cated by the General Land Office. 



2. Another important 

 Southern matter is the proposed 



Forest Appalachian Forest Re- 



Reserve, serve, which this asso- 



ciation has earnestly 

 advocated. No legislation has been ob- 

 tained creating it as yet, but public sen- 

 timent continues to support it with in- 

 creasing force, and it is reasonable to 



expect that in time Congress will act 

 favorably upon the matter. 



3. In pursuance of a res- 

 The olution passed at the last 



Legislative annual meeting, your 

 Committee. President last spring ap- 

 pointed a Legislative 

 Committee to consider what could be 

 done in the way of obtaining forest 

 legislation in the different states. This 

 committee has considered what its work 

 and scope should be, and has decided 

 that the first and most practical piece 

 of work for it to do is to try to devise 

 a harmonious system of tax laws with 

 reference to forested or wooded lands. 

 At present it is collecting information 

 concerning the cut-over pine lands of 

 the South and gathering the opinions 

 of the owners of such lands as to what 

 form of tax exemption or tax postpone- 

 ment would induce owners to interest 

 themselves in reforesting such lands. 

 The existing laws tax lands producing 

 a wood crop upon the value both of the 

 land and the crop. This is not done 

 with other crops in most states and is 

 an unfair discrimination against forest 

 properties, inducing the earliest possible 

 cutting of wooded lands. It has been 

 suggested that the only fair way is to 

 tax the wood crop when it is gathered, 

 and until that time only place a tax 

 upon the value of the land itself. If 

 some general law upon these lines can 

 be framed which will apply in most 

 states, we believe the association could 

 do most important work in having it 

 presented to the legislatures of all the 

 states, furnishing such explanations as 

 might lead to favorable action in many 

 states. 



A new piece of work 

 Affiliation has been attempted by 

 With Other the Secretary this year 

 Associations, in endeavoring to affil- 

 iate existing state for- 

 estry associations with this organization 

 and to organize branches in states where 

 no forestry organizations exist. This 

 matter has been under consideration for 

 many years by our Executive Commit- 

 tee, but no practical way of accomplish- 

 ing so desirable a consolidation of all 

 our voluntary forest interests was found. 



