110 REPORT OF THE FORESTRY COMMITTEE 



defeats the purpose of the laws at the outset. The regulations regarding planting, 

 thinning, etc., are often faulty from the point of view of scientific forestry. - 

 Often the number of trees required to the acre is too large. The list of species 

 designated is not always well chosen. 



"A more serious defect is the injustice to the locality where the exempted 

 forestTiappens"to be located. The only justification for a concession to the forest 

 owner is the resulting advantage to the State as a whole. Yet the particular 

 town or county where the land is located is called upon to bear the whole or the 

 principal part of the burden of a diminished revenue. This tends, first, to lead 

 certain assessors to try to get even by adding enough to the assessment of some 

 other property of the timber owners to make up for the reduced taxes on his forest 

 lands. In the second place it prevents many owners from taking advantage of 

 the law, since they dislike to arouse the hostility of their neighbors or of the 

 local authorities by an apparent attempt to get out of paying their share of local 

 taxes. 



"Another vital reason for failure is that the actual financial consideration is 

 not ordinarily very great after all. The exemption is limited to a fairly short 

 period, after which land and trees are again subject to the general property tax. 

 The abatement comes, of course, at the time when the trees are small, and the 

 taxes would not be very heavy anyway. 



"Finally the whole principle on which these laws are based is, in the writer's 

 opinion, a false one. The idea has been to give some concession, some special 

 favor. This is not what is needed. There is no sound reason why the owner 

 of forest lands should not pay his just share of taxation. And if forestry is 

 going to be profitable at all, it can well afford to pay its just share. What is 

 needed is simple justice, and nothing more. The general property tax acts as 

 an obstacle to forestry, for reasons which cannot be entered into here. What 

 we want is a new system, which shall avoid the evils of the general property tax 

 by a change in method, but which shall still call upon the forest owner to bear 

 his full share of the burden of supporting government. 



"Within the pa^t two years four of our States have taken the first step, some- 

 what faulty and timid to be sure, toward a sound method of forest taxation. 

 Michigan passed a law in 191], New York three laws in 1912. Pennsylvania 

 passed three laws and Connecticut two laws in 1913. Without going into details, 

 these laws provide for a separation of land and trees for purposes of taxation, 

 %ejand either exempt entirely or assessed at a low value, and the trees taxed 

 only when cut, and then at a certain percentage of the value of timber cut The 

 Connecticut law is the most scientific application of the principle of the yield, tax 

 to growing forests thus far passed by any State. The operation of these laws 

 will be awaited with great interest by all those who are interested in forest tax 

 reform."* 



*For a more complete analysis of State legislation, with abstracts of all the laws in 

 effect in October, 1908, cf. "The Taxation of Timberlands," by Fred Rogers Fairchild, 

 Report of the National Conservation Commission, Vol. II, pp. 581-633. The abstracts of 

 State statutes are on pp. 588-589. All of the laws there described arc in force at the pres- 

 ent time. The following legislation has been enacted since then: Connecticut, l,aws of 



