Eothrock.] ^ ^^ [March 2, 



prohibitory objection to total or partial exemption of timber lands from 

 taxation. 



Let us consider this problem from anothnr point. The water whicli 

 turns onr factory wheels and which is used by our larger towns and 

 cities ; whence does it come ? As a rule, from forest-covered hill- 

 sides in remoter parts of tlie State. The mills, towns and cities seldom 

 pay anything for it until it reaches their seats. The men who own the 

 land pay the taxes and receive actnally less from it than those wiio pay 

 nothing for it. Put the proposition in its baldest form : The City of 

 Philadelphia pays nothing for an element which is essential to its life and 

 without which it could not endure a day until it reaches the city limits. 

 Another portion of the community is taxed that we may receive our 

 water free. Is this fair ? The comparisons between air and water supply 

 are not parallel. No one is taxed for air, we simply ask that these cases 

 be made parallel by taxing no one for production of water. It is not too 

 much then to say that the State at large is the beneficiary of the wood- 

 lands. Nor is it too much to ask that legislation be granted by which 

 such counties of the State as endure a hardship by removal of taxes from 

 their timber lands should be relieved by the State to the extent of their 

 financial loss from this cause. 



When timber comes to be removed it ceases to be a purely public bene- 

 fit. It enters the domain of individual or corporate trade and should be 

 taxed accordingly. 



It is becoming more and more clear that officials are required whose 

 duty it shall be to direct suppression of fires, and to ferret out offenders. 

 The law should be imperative that every magistrate in the Commonwealth 

 should report through proper channels at each session of Court all he 

 knows of forest fires since previous session. It should be made a specific 

 duty, to any evasion of which a penalty in some form should be attached. 

 The State already allows annually a premium on trees planted thus : For 

 1200 to the acre during the first ten years ninety per centum of the tax 

 paid on the same ground, providing said premium shall not exceed the 

 sum of forty-five cents per acre. For the second period of ten years the 

 premium is eighty per centum, providing that the premium shall not 

 exceed the sum of forty cents per acre. 



For a third and final period of ten years the premium shall be fifty per 

 centum, providing that the premium so paid shall not exceed the sum of 

 twenty-five cents per acre. 



During and after the second period of ten years, the land owner may 

 thin out his trees to not less than 600 per acre "so long as no portion of 

 the said land shall be absolutely cleared of the said trees." 



Nurserymen or other tree salesmen are not included in the benefits of 

 this act. 



Timber land which has been cleared may receive the same premium as 

 above indicated, providing that notice has been given within one year 

 froni date of clearing of the owner's intention to maintain aaid land in 



