196 MISC. PUBLICATION 218, U. S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE 
has not been postponed by legislative enactment. With economic 
recovery it may be expected that short-term delinquency will fall off 
to normal proportions and that a substantial part of the reverted 
lands will be transferred back to private ownership in one way or 
another. 
Forests lands, particularly cut-over lands of low value, have been 
found to be generally more subject to tax delinquency than other 
classes of real estate. The relatively unfavorable position of forest 
lands in this respect is especially pronounced in the Lake States and 
in the South, but is noted also to a less marked degree in the Pacific 
Northwest. Prior to 1930 merchantable timber has not been subject 
to delinquency except in a few exceptional situations. 
As indicated before, the reversion of tax-delinquent lands to public 
ownership has been greatly accelerated by the current depression. 
There are millions of acres of essentially forest land that are being 
held in private ownership by a tenuous thread. Perhaps much of this 
land would have reverted to public ownership had it not been for the 
failure of local officials to carry out the provisions of the tax laws and 
the loose construction of the laws themselves. In other cases taxes 
have been paid to protect mineral rights, or to preserve title in view of 
the possibility of selling the land to the Federal or State Government, 
or in the hope that forestry may become more profitable by reason of 
better prices for forest products or lower taxes. The situation has 
invited, and the tax laws have permitted, an uncertain tenure. 
As a result of the slowing up in growth of population and changes 
in the demand for agricultural products, much formerly prospective 
agricultural land must now be valued only as forest land. The low 
price of lumber has likewise reduced the attractiveness of forest land. 
This means that cut-over land whose prospective yield is small and 
remote has little market value. In many cases, however, the assessed 
value of such property has not been reduced to its present value. 
Were assessments reduced to actual market vaiues, it is probable 
that much of the land which is now being forfeited would be retained 
in private ownership. On the other hand, as previously mentioned, 
there is much land that is subject to forfeiture to which the State has 
not taken title. It may well be that if the delinquency laws were 
more definite and were enforced rigidly there would be a great deal 
more reversion. It is not certain, however, that such would be the 
result. It may be that if the delinquency procedure were fixed and 
regular and were adhered to without deviation there would be less 
delinquency in the firstinstance. In any event, areasonable procedure 
regularly enforced, combined with an honest assessment, would put 
delinquency on a more reasonable basis. Reversion would generally 
be confined to lands whose expected income was too small and 
uncertain to justify the nuisance and expense of holding. 
The fact that most of the land being forfeited through tax delin- 
quency is low-grade forest land, mainly cut-over land in a poor state 
of reproduction, is simply. evidence that such lands have become sub- 
marginal for either agriculture or forestry under prevailing taxes and 
price levels. The expected future income does not appear to be 
sufficient to cover the probable costs including taxes. When this 
land had a greater speculative value for agricultural use, its earning 
capacity as forest land was not the sole determinant of value, and few 
owners were disposed to surrender it. The loss of its agricultural 
