20 MICHIGAN FORESTRY. 



POOR LANDS USED FOR FORESTRY. 



Now these figures are not put here to slur farming, for few people appre- 

 ciate better than the writer the importance of farming as the greatest in- 

 dustry of man. They are set down to show that when we take the business 

 of the country, of a state, or even a county and average it up as we should 

 when we want to settle on a proper basis of taxation, that the sheer folly to 

 suppose that the business pays at the rates of interest which the money lender 

 gets out of a few fortunates or unfortunates as the case may be and that, as 

 has been very properly claimed by the students of this subject, the business 

 of the state pays at small rate of interest and generally at less than two per 

 cent rather than at more. 



But forestry is a class of farming, it raises a crop from the land and nat- 

 urally enough, it has only the poorer lands at its disposal. So that if taxes on 

 these poorer lands, stocked with timber, rise above two per cent, a point is 

 soon reached where an income is out of question, where even the capital itself 

 is being attacked; in other words, where confiscation of the man's property 

 begins. 



RATE OF TAXATION. 



But are the taxes really so high in our state? According to a report of 

 the state tax comrnissioner (a most excellent and necessary part of any reason- 

 able government) the people in our state paid taxes as follows : 



ON $1,000 OF ASSESSED VALUATION. 



1901 1902 



No. of counties. 



Counties paying over 150 1 



Counties paying from S40 to $49 5 3 



Counties paying from $30 to $39 13 16 



Counties paying from $20 to $29 30 26 



Counties paying from $15 to $19 18 13 



Counties paying from $10 to $14 15 23 



Counties paying less than $10 1 5 



According to this the people over half our counties paid more than two per 

 cent on their property as taxes, and in about one-fourth of the counties they 

 paid over three per cent, while in one county, at least, in 1901, the average 

 tax rate was over six per cent. And it must not be inferred that such things 

 have ceased, for within the month the writer was shown tax receipts where 

 over five per cent had been charged. , 



HIGH TAX DETRIMENTAL TO FORESTRY. 



Has this state of affairs lasted long? Yes, and it is exactly this tax rate 

 which has discouraged not only lumbermen from holding their forests and 

 caring for them, but has even obhged some of our best farmers to sacrifice 

 their handsome woodlots, to have them cut before the tax gatherer should suc- 

 ceed in his efforts at confiscation. That the state failed utterly in giving the 

 lumberman any return for his taxes, failed to protect his property against fire 

 or trespass, is a sad additional which need not be discussed in this connec- 

 tion. 



What the state's policy in this direction is today may be inferred from the 

 reports referred to. In the reports of 1901-1902 it is admitted that the "lum- 

 ber industry of the state is small ""'^ +i^° ^nan+;+ir anri iraino of lllm1^ov nnH 



