32 THE COMMISSION OF INQUIRY, 



assumed point of productive maturity, the first ring will have borne a 

 tax upon its assessed value seventy-nine times, the second ring will have 

 borne a like tax seventy-eight times, and so on. In other words, there 

 will have been a tax on the assessed value of 3,160 annual rings, which 

 is about forty times the number of such rings actually in the tree 

 at the agreed age of eighty. The longer you make the period, the greater 

 will be the excess of taxation. 



It is the opinion of this Commission that so far as reforestation of 

 the State is sought through the encouragement of commercial forestry 

 as distinguished from farm forestry, it should be treated in matters of 

 taxation strictly as a business proposition, requiring no special favor in 

 the way of bounties or tax exemptions. It does not need special favor, 

 but only rational treatment. All that is necessary is to treat it fairly 

 and justly in accordance with the facts and conditions which are in- 

 separable from such property. The commercial forest raiser should not 

 be placed, in the public eye, in the light of an object of charity, or as 

 entitled to a bonus, but he should be treated as one undertaking a busi- 

 ness venture for profit. The business is as capable of paying taxes as 

 any other kind of business if the taxes be graduated in accordance with 

 the unchangeable facts and conditions to which the property is, and 

 must always be, subject. All that is needed, or that should be asked for, 

 or that is wise to grant, is taxation according to a rational system. 

 The fact that great benefit, direct and indirect, will result if reforesta- 

 tion is undertaken on a sufSciently large scale, does not call for the 

 giving of bounties or special favors, but is an excellent reason for chang- 

 ing unjust tax laws that discourage such investments, to the extent of 

 substituting a system of taxation that will be rational, because con- 

 forming to the controlling facts. In this connection it should also be 

 remembered that the State desires to induce individuals to reforest de- 

 nuded lands, and that this involves an investment of money on their 

 part which must stand for a much longer period of time than is usual 

 for investments in the financial world, and while so standing must al- 

 ways be, to a greater or less extent, in danger of destruction from fire, 

 wind, fungi and insects. Moreover, before any return can be expected 

 there must be a wait longer than the term of ordinary investments. 

 This is true, even though it be conceded that a forest will begin to yield 

 returns long before it arrives at what can properly be termed maturity. 

 These are repellant features to the ordinary investor. On the other 

 hand, the proposition can not be considered as attractive to those who 

 seek commercial ventures for profit. The results are too long in com- 

 ing. Consequently the number of possible investors in ventures of for- 

 est raising is restricted ; and if the States wishes to secure the co-opera- 

 tion of suflBcient individual effort, it will wisely make concessions wher- 

 ever injustice is being done by its laws ; and taxation which piles itself 

 up during the entire period that forest growth must stand stored and 

 idle is clearly both irrational and unjust. 



Any system of taxation of forest properties must, to be rational, 

 recognize the distinction between the land and the forest growth. No 

 one can justly complain if the land is taxed like neighboring unimproved 

 land. The improvement thereon, the growth that forms during each 

 year, should be taxed at the rate borne by other property, but each year's 



