170 Canadian Forestry Journal. 



Where the tax docs not exceed $5.00 per square mile, and 

 there is fair safety from fire and false settlement, its unfavoraVjle 

 influence should not be so great as to deter operators from con- 

 servative lumbering, especially on pine lands where stumpage 

 values are comparatively rapidly rising, for where a goodly 

 share of young trees remain on the ground a second logging 

 may be undertaken in perhaps thirty or forty years. The con- 

 ditions would be exceptionally favorable where an earlier return 

 would be possible unless the lumberman be giving up the idea 

 of continued crops and intends to cut to a smaller diameter at 

 the second logging than at the first. 



In view of the fact that first-rate white pine cannot be 

 grown short of upwards of 80 years, it will be seen that in the 

 matter of sowings and plantations the ground rent is a much more 

 serious matter. That this is a very practical question is evi- 

 denced by inquiries from limit holders regarding the practica- 

 bility and cost of reforesting pine lands by these methods. It is 

 evident, however, that a ground rent of $5.00 per year may be 

 a very serious deterrent to artificial reforesting by sowing or 

 planting or even to the use of any of the cheaper methods of 

 natural seeding by the lumberman, for he must meet a tax bill 

 averaging over a thousand dollars per year for the twenty years 

 between the 80th and looth year of the stand. 



New Brunswick with an $8.00 ground rent places a much 

 greater financial obstacle in the way of progressive lumbermen 

 who would care for the forest, but all Eastern and Central Can- 

 ada is outclassed in this respect by recent legislation on the 

 Pacific Coast where on federal lands the tax is S3 2.00 and on 

 provincial lands $96.00 and $160.00 per square mile. 



The prohibition thus imposed on all hope of holding the 

 lands for future crops may best be emphasized by repeating the 

 amount of the tax bill as shown by the table. Assuming that 

 the British Columbia lumberman has built a mill of sufficient 

 capacity to enjov the lower rate of $96.00 per square mile per 

 annum, he would find on his return for a second logging a tax 

 bill as follows: — 



At 30 years .... $8,045 °o 

 " 50 " .... 29.544 00 

 "80 " .... 179,568 00 



" TOO " 589.373 00 



Should he be so unfortunate as to be a small mill owner, the above 

 amounts must be increased 40%. 



Presumably this extraordinary piece of legislation, exacting 

 a high ground rent and merely nominal stumpage dues (50c. per 

 M), wa^ intended to "develop "the lumber industry. What- 

 ever the motive or intention, the result must be clear to every 



