FORESTRY AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT.- .19 



expense incurred by the State in this advertising was almost a com- 

 plete loss, since it is not likely that more than a very small per cent 

 of the lands advertised, consisting for the most part of sand barrens 

 raid swamps, actually were sold. 



Such conditions obviously tended to put a premium on fraudulent 

 land dealing. Cut-over lands of little value except for forest pro- 

 duction, for example, could be acquired cheaply by the speculator, 

 divided into small lots, the smaller and more numerous the better, 

 and sold as resort lots, fruit farms, or chicken ranches to persons 

 unacquainted with local conditions. Almost any price would be 

 sufficient to net a handsome profit. In addition the register of deeds 

 would receive a tidy sum for recording transfers of title. Before 

 long the purchasers would discover the true character of the land 

 they had bought, taxes would be allowed to lapse, and the local news- 

 papers would benefit substantially from the subsequent advertisement 

 of delinquent tax lands hj the State. Some years later the land 

 again might be acquired by speculators and the same procedure 

 repeated. Such transactions have proved highly profitable to spec- 

 ulators, newspapers, and registers of deeds, and equally unprofitable 

 to the individual investor and the general public. At the same time 

 the land has been withheld from the use to which it was best suited. 



ABANDONED RAILROADS. 



The way in which the forest resources of a region are handled 

 has an important influence on the development and permanence of 

 its transportation facilities. To a very considerable extent the lum- 

 ber industry has been instrumental in connecting remote regions 

 with the rest of the country. In some parts of the country practi- 

 cally every one of the main trunk lines of to-day started as a logging 

 railroad. Lumbering was the only industry to call people to the 

 region in any considerable numbers, and. wood products were the 

 only freight to come out. Where the land was valuable for agricul- 

 ture, farming to a large extent succeeded lumbering. Often, how- 

 ever, there were no local markets for the farm crops raised on such 

 lands, and it was only because transportation facilities, which had 

 already been developed by the forest resources of the country, were 

 available, that their successful utilization was possible. In other 

 words, the forest by calling the railroads into existence made pos- 

 sible agriculture, which in turn made the railroads permanent. 



In regions primarily adapted to forest production, destructive lum- 

 bering has a very different ultimate effect on transportation facili- 

 ties. Here logging railroads in abundance are constructed while the 

 timber is being exploited, and the most remote points are made easy 

 of access. With the removal of the timber, however, the railroads 



