FOREST TAXATION IN THE UNITED STATES 195 
eration is bound to involve hardships under the best of circum- 
stances. A speedy collapse may work no greater hardships than a slow 
death, and an orderly readjustment certainly less than a state of 
demoralization. 
The ultimate effect of continued delinquency is of course forfeiture 
of title and, to an increasing extent because of the absence of private 
buyers, reversion of land to the public domain. The need for definite 
State policies for handling such lands has already been pointed out. 
Wholesale reversion introduces difficult problems of administration 
and necessitates important political readjustments. It is evident 
that, if a tax roll is reduced by 10 or 20 percent through delinquency, 
the remaining 80 or 90 percent must thereafter bear all of the taxes. 
If the land which reverts could be consolidated into large tracts, there 
could be some reduction in governmental costs, but if it is in scattered 
holdings there are no compensatory savings. Moreover there is the 
added cost of administering the public land, which becomes a con- 
siderable item if the tracts are small and scattered. There is little 
prospect of realizing a substantial income in the immediate future 
from the type of land that is usually abandoned by private owners. 
A large amount of reversion thus almost compels a reorganization of 
the political unit, a broadening of the tax base, or a State or Federal 
subsidy. Without some such relief the burden must become more 
severe, resulting in increased delinquency and a final inevitable col- 
pase of the political unit. Perhaps the only solution for areas with 
a sparse population and an acute delinquency problem is their reduc- 
tion to an unorganized status and, where natural conditions are 
extremely unfavorable, complete depopulation. 
CONCLUSIONS 
It has been shown that in general tax-collection procedure under the 
property tax is dilatory and inefficient. This is due partly to weak- 
ness in the statutory provisions and partly to lax administration. 
Sometimes political favoritism is involved; sometimes general inertia 
and leniency on the part of tax officials is to be blamed. There is 
general reluctance on the part of State and county governments to 
take over title to land that cannot be sold for taxes, partly because it 
is hoped that economic conditions will improve so that these lands 
may again be added to the tax rolls, and partly because in most States 
there is no provision for making any profitable use of reverted lands. 
Prior to the current industrial depression, delinquency was not 
widespread but was confined for the most part to regions with large 
areas of cut-over forest lands not wanted fo r agriculture. In those 
regions the trend in delinquency from about 1920 to 1928 was 
decidedly upward. ‘The fundamental cause of this upward trend was 
the agricultural depression beginning in 1921, which gradually 
destroyed the hope of prospective agricultural use for these cut-over 
forest lands and for other lands of inferior productive capacity. 
The current industrial depression has resulted in a very sharp 
increase in short-term delinquency between 1930 and 1933, which 
has not been confined to forest lands but has involved agricultural 
and urban real estate as well. During this period there has also been 
a marked increase in the area of reverted lands in States where delin- 
quency had already been prevalent and where the process of reversion 
