TAXATION OF FOREST LANDS 19 



PART III MASSACHUSETTS 



The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has tried two 

 methods of tax relief, bounties, and exemption of plan- 

 tations for a period of years. 



The first attempt to promote forest culture dates back 

 to 1818, and was evidently intended to provide against a 

 famine in ship timber. It is given in Eevised Laws, 

 chapter 124, as follows : 



SECTION 10. Every such society shall annually offer such Premiums 

 premiums and encouragement for the raising and preservation aL r another 

 of oaks and other forest trees as it considers proper and foresttrees - 

 adapted to perpetuate within the commonwealth an adequate 

 supply of ship and other timber. 



The records show that in all $36,336.75 have been 

 offered and $3,375.20 awarded. Of the funds offered, 

 $12,000 were supplied by the Massachusetts Society for 

 promoting Agriculture ; and of those awarded, $2,000 were 

 paid by this society; making in all $1,375.20 awarded by 

 the Commonwealth. ~No record of the acreage planted has 

 been made; and the probability is that most of the con- 

 tests were in ornamental rather than economic planting. 



We believe that this law is inadequate to solve the 

 problem of economic forest propagation within the Com- 

 monwealth. For, granting that it has secured the plant- 

 ing of considerable areas, which it has not done, these 

 forests would under the present system of taxation be sub- 

 ject to an annual and increasing assessment, which tends 

 towards early and wasteful cutting. 



The next law intending to promote timber culture was 

 passed in 1878. It provides for exemption of artificial 

 plantations for a period of years. This law is as fol- 

 lows : 



REVISED LAWS, CHAPTER 12 



SECTION 6. All plantations of chestnut, hickory,, white ash, Plantations of 

 white oak, sugar maple, European larch and pine timber trees, ei 

 in number not less than two thousand trees to the acre, upon 

 land, not at the time of said planting woodland or sprout-land 



