FIFTH NATIONAI, CONSERVATION CONGRESS 115 



patent forestry administration. In certain States, Pennsylvania for example, 

 partial exemption of the land is obtained without loss of local revenue by in- 

 cluding the land in so-called auxiliary forest reserves, the State itself paying 

 the tax. 



Either of the three plans outlined is logical. Their relative merit is a ques- 

 tion of expediency, taking into account the time at which the community most 

 needs the tax and the time at which the forest grower can bpst pay it. The 

 ultimate amount paid would be the same in all, if the yield tax is scientifically 

 based on the productive value of the land, which is the only correct basis. A 

 distinction sometimes overlooked is that there is no true justice in taxing a crop 

 at all, whether timber or agricultural, if the land has been taxed at its full value, 

 especially if other forins of taxation reach the owner's profits by its disposal. 

 A yield tax is not properly upon the crop, but the latter may be made to pay a 

 deferred tax upon the owner's wealth represented in land capable of producing 

 it. It is then a form of land taxation, deferred, for justice' sake, to await rev- 

 enue with which to pay it. Or it may be a form of income tax, the crop merely 

 indicating the income. Expediency may, however, require some degree of annual 

 taxation. In the one case this will be land taxation and any additional yield tax 

 should be only sufficient to complete it. In the other, it is a premature realiza- 

 tion of the expected income tax and the yield tax should but complete the latter. 

 It is also possible to combine land taxation and income taxation, but to do so 

 fairly requires a reduction of each so that the aggregate will not exceed what 

 either would be alone, and the crop must not be additionally taxed after this is 

 done. 



Consequently none of the three accepted methods, or of any logical combi- 

 nations or compromises between them, can be called more just than another 

 without considering circumstances ; and it is necessary to describe their variation 

 in some detail in order to enable local application. While geographical classi- 

 fication cannot be exact, or decision upon any two systems be without possibility 

 of greater local merit in some change of either, the confining of this report to a 

 reasonable limit has suggested discussing one plan combining the most logical 

 features of new crop taxation in the eastern and like States and one most widely 

 suitable in the extreme west. Either east or west may present exceptional local 

 conditions largely typical of what we have given opposite classification, while 

 the southern and Rocky Mountain States must choose again from conclusions 

 which best suit their premises. 



EASTERN CONDITIONS (Taxing New Crop— Contimied) 



COMPARED with those we are to discuss later as western, eastern con- 

 ditions present the widest range of variance within themselves. In forest 

 types, in local government units, in dependence upon forest land for 

 revenue, and in advance of popular understanding of the issues involved, they 

 by no means offer a universal problem susceptible of a single correct solution. 

 Nevertheless, they do have a common difference from the extreme west in higher 

 and more stable stumpage values due to nearness to lumber markets; in having 



