492 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



The coal lands in certain parts of the state have increased a hundred per 

 cent, in value for a period of ten years, while in other portions of the state the 

 increase in value has been very slight. The values as a whole are increasing 

 from year to year. 



The Wisconsin Tax Commissioner, after a most exhaustive report, 

 makes the following statement: 1 



Under present statutes minerals enter into the valuation of the land in 

 which they are deposited. This law is absolutely impossible of just enforcement. 

 The assessor can have no reliable information as to the amount of the mineral 

 in the ground, even in operated mines, much less its value, which must depend 

 upon the quantity and quality of the deposit, cost of mining, and other matters 

 requiring the highest expert knowledge. In practise the consequence is that no 

 effect is as a rule made to tax the mineral. 



The net result of this rather extensive inquiry into the increase in 

 the value of mineral lands was therefore practically nil. 



Even less success attended the attempt to secure any reliable infor- 

 mation regarding the value of water sites. The development of water 

 power on a commercial basis is so recent, and the variation in the facili- 

 ties afforded by different sites is so extreme, that it seems impossible to 

 make any just estimate of the extent to which these sites are increasing 

 in value. It seems fair, however, to state that with the exhaustion of the 

 coal supply, on the one hand, and the improvements in electrical appli- 

 ances on the other, the near future should witness a rapid advance in 

 the commercial value of water-power facilities. 



Aside from the discouragement involved in this attempt to draw 

 statistical blood from an economic stone, the results yielded by the 

 study of land values, though in no sense conclusive, are in every way 

 suggestive. The federal government has recently completed an exten- 

 sive investigation of the lumber industry. The Census Department 

 and the Department of Agriculture both attempt to secure farm values, 

 and a number of cities have instituted systems of separate assessments 

 for land and improvements, which makes a determination of land values 

 in those cities comparatively easy. Therefore, for timber lands, for 

 farm lands and for city land the sources of information merit attention. 



Unlike mineral and fuel deposits, timber tracts are susceptible of 

 definite measurement and valuation. Private dealers as well as state 

 and federal authorities were most generous in the cooperation. The 

 information from private sources and from state officials is intended 

 only to corroborate and supplement the excellent body of information 

 compiled by the Bureau of Corporations. 



Timber is an anti-social scapegrace. For a generation it has been 

 the leader in the merry race of upward-moving prices. Since 1890, 

 the prices of timber products have risen faster than the prices of any 

 other group of commodities. The latest wholesale price-list issued by 



1 Eeport of the Wisconsin Tax Commission, 1910, Madison, Wis., 1911, p. 16. 



