Forestry and Taxation 225 



depending on their products, must be skilfully and 

 lovingly cared for by man. I n return they will supply 

 him with what he needs of their stock, and they will 

 protect his hillsides and watercourses, and beckon 

 him to their shades for rest and recreation more 

 beneficently than ever the primeval wilderness did. 

 It may or may not be true that sound policy de- 

 mands free trade in lumber. But that is a question 

 to be answered on general grounds of national 

 economy. As a means of preserving the forests it 

 must be repudiated by the advocates of forestry 

 reform. 



The forest and lumber interests must not and do 

 not demand to be exempt from their due share in 

 carrying the burden of taxation necessary to support 

 our government, national, state, or local. What 

 they do demand and are entitled to is such an ad- 

 justment of the manner and amount of taxation 

 that on the one hand these forms of industry are 

 made to pay no greater proportion of the taxes than 

 other interests, and on the other hand the tax regu- 

 lations do not make a rational conduct of the for- 

 estry business impossible. It is for the interest of 

 the whole nation that this question be settled right. 

 If the people only understood how seriously their 

 interests are injured by the faulty manner of forest 

 taxation, they would be far more clamorous than 

 the lumbermen themselves to have these abuses 

 rectified. For the lumbermen have paid their ex- 

 orbitant taxes in the past and have made money, 

 even built up great fortunes ; and they do so now, 



