148 MISC. PUBLICATION 218, U. S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE 
by nonresidents are assigned to support particular local activities. 
This is well illustrated by comparing those school districts of Clatsop 
County, Oreg., where the voters are the taxpayers, with the districts 
where there are large tracts of timber and the voters pay but little 
of the tax. In four districts having no timber the cost per capita for 
operating the schools varied from $52.83 to $85.61, while in four 
districts having large tracts of timber, the cost per capita for operating 
schools varied from $112.35 to $370.65.%° In one forest-land district 
in Clatsop County the school costs per pupil are reported to be from 
$800 to $1,000 per school year. The county assessor of Clallam 
County, Wash., reported that there was one high-school district in 
the western end of this county, where timber is plentiful and children 
few, that maintained a high school for only 30 pupils at an annual cost 
of over $30,000. A part of the higher cost of schools in the forest-land 
districts may be due to a sparser school population and higher trans- 
portation costs, but without doubt a large part is due to the lack of 
incentive to be economical. 
In contrast to this is the practice in Maine, where the school affairs 
of the forest region (unorganized territory), which is 50 percent of 
the entire area of the State, are administered as one huge school 
district by the State commissioner of education. The annual school 
cost (primary and high school) is 0.06 percent of the assessed valua- 
tion, or $107 per pupil. The school tax rate is 0.33 percent, and the 
difference between the tax and the cost, or 0.27 percent of the assessed 
valuation, is contributed by the forest region toward the support of 
all the schools in the farming and industrial sections of the State. 
As a result the school tax rate in the forest region of Maine is more 
uniform, averages less, and leads to a more equitable distribution of 
the tax burden than jn the forest regions of other States. 
The drawing of political township boundaries in sparsely populated 
forest regions also is often the result of gerrymandering. This is well 
illustrated by the accompanying sketch (fig. 6) of Iron County, Mich., 
showing township boundaries. ‘Township 1 is an agricultural and 
forest-land township. All of the permanent residents live in the 
southern fourth of the township. The northern uninhabited forest 
land portion is attached for administrative and taxation purposes 
and assists in reducing the tax burden on the farming community. 
Township 2 is a mining and forest-land township. Practically all of 
the permanent residents live in the eastern third, which js the rich 
mining portion of the township. This mining community is abun- 
dantly able to support the local government with a very low tax rate 
and still indulge in some extravagance. However, the western unin- 
habited forest portion of the township is added for administrative and 
taxation purposes. As a consequence the timber lands in the western 
part, by being attached to a district with a high degree of ability to 
pay, are favored with a low township tax rate. 
This situation is again contrasted with the unorganized forest 
region of Maine and the unorganized territory of St. Louis County, 
Minn., where the forest region, lacking permanent habitations and 
lacking community interest and voting power, is segregated for taxa- 
tion purposes and contributes only to the support of general State 
and county functions and to governmental activities especially related 
to the forest region. 
39 Letter of Oct. 10, 1928, from E. E. Montague to Tri County Association of Portland, Oreg. 
