FORESTRY. 



^n 



counties in the Southern Peninsula which 

 average but 6 per cent of improved land. 

 The same census reports show that the old- 

 er States, too, have their waste lands ; that 

 Maine has still 88 per cent, of her lands not 

 tilled, Pennsylvania 55 per cent, Virginia 

 61 per cent., and even Massachusetts JJ per 

 cent. The experience of Europe, extending 

 ing back for centuries, fully corroborates the 

 general truth that there are few countries 

 which have not a large proportion of land 

 unfit for agriculture. Unproductive lands 

 are a waste, a loss. For this reason the 

 Old World States, for centuries, have en- 

 deavored to keep these lands in the hands 

 of the State and keep or make them produc- 

 tive through forestry methods. In recent 

 years the States of New York, Pennsyl- 

 vania, and lately the State of Wisconsin 

 have decided to abandon the policy of get- 

 ting rid of tax title and other State lands, 

 and to take the poor lands of the State and 

 improve them along forestry lines. In our 

 white pine belt there is much of this work 

 to be done. As to methods there are many. 

 Wherever a growth of young trees exists 

 it may often be best merely to protect and 

 wait and let Nature do the work. In many 

 cases this will be too slow, fires have cleaned 

 up completely, there are no trees to produce 

 seed, and the young tree growth has all 

 disappeared. In such cases replanting will 

 be economy. Among the trees to plant, the 

 native trees, white pine, Norway and jack 

 pine, will deserve first choice, but others 

 may be tried. Planting from nurseries kept 

 right on the ground will probably be the 

 cheapest method in the end. What this 

 leads to may be summed up briefly: It will 

 mean millions of acres of productive woods 

 where now there is nothing but unproduc- 

 tive waste ; it will mean permanent mills 

 and factories, employment for permanent 

 people, not nomads, and a sorely needed 

 home supply of one of the most necessary 

 products used in civilized life." 



The question of taxing woodlands has 

 been again raised. At present it is unjustly 

 handled and in such a manner as to be a 

 premium on forest destruction. Mr. Ernest 

 Bruncken, in his paper on Taxation and 

 Private Forestry, contended that the pre- 

 vailing practice of taxing all merchantable 

 timber annually, regardless of whether it 

 was to be harvested during the current year 

 or not, was a premium on cutting timber 

 which, though merchantable, had not yet 

 reached its highest value. The loss fell far 

 more on the community than on the owner. 



As possible remedies were suggested : 

 Exemption of timber while taxing the land 

 on its agricultural value, which was dis- 

 missed as impracticable ; Taxing the land at 

 its agricultural value, exempting the timber 

 from the property tax, but exacting a tax 

 on the gross income derived by the owner 



from the sale of the timber. This was de- 

 clared a fair and feasible solution of the 

 problem. The speaker proposed a plan by 

 which he hoped both to solve the taxation 

 difficulty and to offer an inducement to 

 woodland owners to manage their wood- 

 lands according to forestry methods. He 

 would permit owners of timber land to 

 register with the State Forest Department, 

 and agree to manage them according to 

 working plans adopted with the assistance 

 of the department, and under its supervision. 

 In return the land would be assessed by the 

 department instead of by the local assessors, 

 at what it would be worth for permanent 

 forest instead of agricultural land, while 

 the timber would be assessed only in the 

 year in which it is actually cut. 



Dr. Fernow spoke at length of the diffi- 

 culties of devising practicable tax laws and 

 the insufficiency of the existing laws in- 

 tended to encourage private forestry in In- 

 diana and Pennsylvania. 



The need for educated foresters to carry 

 out reforestation plans was brought out 

 by Prof. T. B. Green, of the Minnesota 

 Agricultural College, contending that the 

 agricultural colleges are best fitted to train 

 foresters. 



These colleges now aim to train men to 

 see the possibilities of rural life, and the 

 forester needs much the same training, for 

 he will probably spend his life in rural 

 communities where he will be thrown large- 

 ly on his own resources in dealing with 

 thousands of natural problems at first hand. 

 He will have charge, perhaps, of a forest 

 that contains a considerable extent of farm 

 or pasture lands, and he should understand 

 the best method of developing them. 



Much time was naturally consumed in 

 discussions having reference to the new 

 federal Minnesota forest reservation at Cass 

 lake and the Itaska Park State reservation. 



Dr. Fernow 7 finally pointed out the near- 

 est duty for the Forestry Association : Re- 

 ferring to the fact that the Forestry Asso- 

 ciation met in the twin city of St. Paul 

 just 20 years ago for its third meeting, he 

 reviewed briefly the changes that had taken 

 place since that time, both in regard to con- 

 sumption and supply of forest products and 

 in regard to the progress of the forestry 

 movement : 



"From the census statistics, it appears 

 that the timber industry in these 20 years 

 has more than trebled in the capital em- 

 ployed, namely to over 600 million dollars, 

 and the value as well as the quantity of 

 product has more than doubled, while the 

 population has increased little over 50 per 

 cent. In other words, the tendency is to 

 constantly increase the use of wood and 

 the drafts on our timber reserves in excess 



