6 THE COMMISSION OF INQUIRY, 



land unless It has been delinquent at least five years. Examination of 

 the State tax land list of any year in the Auditor General's Department 

 will disclose that most of the land which has be^n deeded, or which is 

 in condition to be deeded, has been -delinquent for a term of years greatly 

 exceeding five. It is believed that it is a conservative estimate to place 

 the average period of habitual tax delinquency at upwards of ten years ; 

 and it is quite certain that this average considerably exceeds five years, 

 and that all but a very small part of the forfeited tax land (State tax 

 land as well as tax homestead land) has been delinquent for a period 

 of five years or more. 



THE TAX LAW HAS AUTOMATICALLY CLASSIFIED THE FORFEITED TAX LAND 

 AS THAT WHICH IT IS WISE TO USE FOR FOREST RESERVES. 



The forfeited tax land, situated largely in the sandy cut-over pineries, 

 is, therefore, the residum of a sifting process that ha's worked auto- 

 matically for a long period of time. It is the land selected impartially 

 by the self interest of the original owners as that which, for a series 

 of years, has not been worth paying taxes upon. It is an obvious and 

 safe conclusion that land which has been derelict for taxes continuously 

 for many rears is, in general, not of the b©t:ter class of land in the town 

 or county. Habitual and continuous tax delinquency, ending in for- 

 feiture of title and total abandonment, establishes, with reasonable cer- 

 tainty, that such derelict, land is, generally speaking, of the poorest in 

 the particular town or county where it is situated. Moreover, many of 

 the choicer pieces of what, at some time, have been included in the 

 State's holdings, have been picked up from time to time by the home- 

 steader or purchaser ; so that in the course of time less and less of good 

 land has been left in the list, until at present the sifting process of 

 natural selection has furnished a safer guide to the poorer lands of the 

 State than would be obtained by actual official examination. It is prob- 

 ably true that there is a good deal of this forfeited tax land which might 

 profitably be farmed. We believe it is equally true that a good deal of 

 it is too poor for success in this direction. In- our opinion, no one can 

 speak with conclusive authority (compare appendices 2 and 3) as to 

 what percentage is of the one kind or the other, nor do we think it can 

 be accurately determined by official examination. We believe it to be a 

 safe and fair conclusion, however, that in general the land forfeited to 

 the State for taxes is of the poorest class of land in its particular locality. 



If, therefore, the State wishes to establish State forest reserves, and 

 to utilize for this purpose the forfeited tax land, it will find it already 

 selected automatically and impartially as the land that prima facie 

 should be devoted to forest growing, because it is in general the poorer 

 land in each county ; and therefore in taking it for State forest reserves 

 there will be no violation of the principle that forestry should be directed, 

 as far as practicable, to the lands less valuable for tillage, leaving the 

 better tillable land for settlement. While some land of the better class 

 might fall into forest reserves that were formed by taking all the for- 

 feited tax land, without discrimination, in limited districts where the 

 State's holdings are bunched in sufficient area, nevertheless, this would, 

 under the circumstances, be a desirable result rather than one to be 

 avoided; for there should be considerable land in the State reserves 



