94 THE COMMISSION OF INQUIRY, 



EXTRACTS FROM WOODLAND TAXATION, BY JUDSON F. CLARK, PROVINCIAL FOR- 

 ESTER FOR ONTARIO IN CANADIAN FORESTRY JOURNAL, OCTOBER, 1905. 



The Assessment Basis: — Whether or not the assessment valuation 

 should apply to the value of the land or the value of the land plus the 

 value of the timber standing on it at the time. 



It has been the custom and the law of most states and provinces in 

 North America to include the value of the standing timber with that of 

 the soil in assessing woodlands for taxation purposes. This is both 

 unjust and unwise, and is certain to result detrimentally to woodlands 

 wherever practiced. 



Forest crops dififer from field crops in that the product of any one 

 year's growth cannot be harvested at the end of the growing season, 

 as is the rule with other crops. Thus the portion of wood which is 

 produced during, say, the fifth, tenth, or fifteenth year of a tree's or 

 plantations' growth must remain on the ground until there has accumu- 

 lated fifty, sixty, or seventy years' growth, when the whole may be sold 

 to advantage. The growth produced during the earlier years of the 

 tree's life is to all intents and purposes simply stored in the trunk of 

 the tree until such time as the whole has reached a merchantable size. 

 To add the value of a forty years' growth of pine trees to the value of 

 the soil for taxation purposes is really as unfair in principle as to add 

 the value of the last forty years' grain crops to the assessment valua- 

 tion of a grain field. The forty years' growth of pine is not there for 

 investment purposes. It is there simply because the nature of the crop 

 requires the accumulation of decades of growth to make the whole mer- 

 chantable. 



It cannot be too clearly kept in mind in this connection that the soil 

 and climate, and they alone, are the natural producing factors whether 

 the crop be wood or wheat. To add the value of standing timber to the 

 assessment is clearly a case of double taxation in that to the value of 

 the producing agent — ^the soil — ^has been added the value of its product 

 — the trees. 



Woodland Tax Exemption: — Whether there be any special economic 

 reasons why land bearing wood crops should be taxed at a different 

 rate from lands producing other crops. 



There are several reasons which may be urged in favor of the remis- 

 sion of part or all the taxes on such woodlands as are maintained wholly 

 for the production of timber, and which receive sufficient intelligent 

 care to keep them up to a reasonable standard of production. They are : 



(1) The value of woodlands to the community in general by virtue 

 of the beneficent influence exerted on the climate by moderating the 

 force of heavy winds and by favorably influencing the humidity and 

 temperature of the atmosphere; and by the very favorable influence ex- 

 erted in regulating the flow of streams. 



(2) The long time element in the maturing of a forest crop is a 

 great discouragement in wood production. There is no line of business 

 in which men ordinarily engage which requires the looking forward for 

 more than a decade or at most two decades. Timber growing, however, 

 requires the constant planning in advance for sixty, eighty, or even one 

 hundred years. So profound is the influence of this long time element 

 that the great law of supply and demand is paralyzed. To illustrate: 



