18 BULLETIN 638, U. S. -DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



to become firmly established, and it is a great assistance if other in- 

 dustries are present to help tide over this preparatory period. In 

 regions where the land is primarily valuable for forest production, 

 the maintenance of the forest property in a productive condition is 

 of course essential for the continued prosperity of the inhabitants. 



It has been stated 1 that " there are in Pennsylvania several coun- 

 ties that were once prosperous, because rich in forest, but which are 

 now reduced to an almost bankrupt condition because the timber is 

 gone. The land is too poor and cold to encourage remunerative agri- 

 culture." Stewardson Township, in which is located the once busy 

 sawmill town of Cross Fork, is in one of these counties. Assessed 

 real estate values in this township dropped from $896,862 in 1904 to 

 $18,815 in 1914 — a decrease of 98 per cent in 10 years. 2 The precari- 

 cds financial condition of the town is emphasized by the fact that it 

 is still carrying a debt of several thousand dollars in school and road 

 bonds left over from the days of its prosperity. If it had not been 

 for the State, which for some years has been buying up cut-over land 

 in that region, on which it has paid the township annually 2 cents an 

 acre for schools and an equal amount for roads/ bankruptcy would 

 have been inevitable. As it happens, the $1,645.60 paid to the town- 

 ship each year by the State has been sufficient to save the situation. 



DELINQUENT TAX LANDS. 



Still another aspect of the matter is that concerned with delinquent 

 tax lands. In some sections of the country timberland owners have 

 indulged in the practice of allowing their taxes to lapse for several 

 years until they amounted to more than the value of the land, and then 

 buying title from the State again for the nominal sum of $1 an acre 

 or thereabouts. This cheap way of paying taxes has meant, of course, 

 a loss to the community approximately equal to the gain to the indi- 

 vidual, in addition to the cost of advertising. 



Advertising of such delinquent tax lands has in itself been a heavy 

 expense to the State, though a material profit to the small country 

 newspapers. In Michigan, for example, during the 10 years from 

 1896 to 1905, more than a million and a half dollars was spent for ad- 

 vertising delinquent tax lands and for extra clerical help in the 

 auditor general's office. In the supplement to the Roscommon 

 Herald-News for March 30, 1916, were published no lesL than 4,131 

 descriptions of land and lots in Roscommon County alone on which 

 taxes were delinquent. Three thousand one hundred and seventy- 

 four of these were for village and " resort " lots. The advertisements 

 covered more than four and a half pages and must have been the 

 source of considerable profit to the paper. In all probability the 



1 " Areas of Desolation in Pennsylvania," by J. T. Rotnrock, 1915. 



2 See reports of the State Secretary of Internal Affairs in Pennsylvania. 



