FIFTH NATIONAL CONSERVATION CONGRESS 119 



regular books giving a record of their cutting. Their books and accounts should 

 be open to State officers and more elaborate reports could be required of them. 

 In the case of small farm wood-lots it would not probably be worth while to 

 require special books or elaborate reports. The sworn statement of the owner 

 would ordinarily be sufficient. In all cases there should be some examination of 

 logging operations, either by State or local officers, to check up the accuracy of 

 reports and to prevent fraud. In the case of all large cuttings the owner or 

 operator should be required to furnish a bond sufficient to cover the amount of the 

 tax that will become due. The tax should also be a lien upon the land, but not 

 upon the timber cvit.* 



WESTERN CONDITIONS (Taxing New Crop— Continued) 



THE five Pacific forest States, from Montana to California, contain our 

 most magnificent standing forests and also, having a combination of favor- 

 able climate and rapid-growing species, offer great natural advantage for 

 growing new forests on a tremendous scale. They are also very similar in their 

 forms of vState and county government and in the great importance of forests and 

 forest industry in their economic affairs. Consequently, although they present 

 varying tree species and acreage values, they group readily in a classification of 

 conditions suggesting methods of forest taxation. 



This group of States, however, presents a more marked distinction between 

 mature timber and reforestation than affects the taxation problem elsewhere. It 

 has vast areas which will remain uncut for many years, yet which are regarded 

 as necessary sources of a large proportion of the total tax revenue. In some 

 counties standing timber now pays 80 or even 90 per cent of all moneys raised. 

 Any form of yield tax upon mature timber that will meet this situation must be 

 sound beyond criticism. Mere experiment cannot well be afforded. On the other 

 hand, logging is largely clean-cutting, resulting, together with past fires, in large 

 areas of no value for any purpose but forest-growing, incapable of paying any 

 but a nominal annual tax and for this reason now lying idle and a menace, at a 

 sacrifice to the community of millions which might be earned were their better 

 care not penalized. Reforestation of such lands is of the highest importance 

 and can be encouraged by tax reform which does not apply to mature timber and 

 which can scarcely fail, if availed of at all, to be better for the community than 

 the present system. 



The owner of deforested land on the Pacific coast may or may not 

 hold such land for a time under the present system, in the hope of selling 

 it or of tax reform, but he will seldom, if ever, take steps to insure re- 

 foresting which cost money because to do so is too likely to be at an actual loss. 

 In the first place, its sale value represents an investment. He may sell and 

 reinvest the money in any business which looks inviting. Presumably he can get 



* For a fuller account of the problems of taxation of growing forests in the eastern 

 part of the United States and a more detailed discussion of plans of reform see "Suggestions 

 for a Practical Plan of Forest Taxation" by Fred Rogers Fairchild in Proceedings of the 

 Sixth National Conference on State and Local Taxation; Madison, Wise, National Tax 

 Association, 1913. 



