176 OUR VANISHING FORESTS 



off, and where will the money for schools and roads 

 come from? 



In Louisiana all timber lands are classified at 

 fixed periods according to the number of thousand 

 feet of timber per acre growing thereon, and taxed 

 accordingly. If any person owns cut-over land suit- 

 able for tree-growing and is willing to enter into a 

 contract whereby he is to carry on proper reforesta- 

 tion, the state in turn agrees that during the life of 

 that contract it will tax the property only as bare 

 land, and at the rate in effect when the contract was 

 made. That this scheme is workable has already 

 been shown by the progress in reforestation made 

 by one of the large Louisiana lumber companies, 

 but it may well be capable of some revision. More- 

 over, the permanency of the idea here depends upon 

 the outcome of a race between forest cutting and 

 forest growing. The law must sufficiently stimulate 

 forest growing before the remaining forests are 

 cut, or there will be no source of future revenue. A 

 good example of this very catastrophe may be seen 

 today in Michigan, which, through non-adoption of 

 a policy to encourage forest growing on its cut-over 

 area, is now for the most part unable to collect 

 anything therefrom, and every tax period finds in- 

 creasing thou«:.ands of acres uselessly advertised for 

 sale. 



