FOREST TAXATION IN THE UNITED STATES 259 
or believed that the yield tax was impractical in their particular 
locality. Of the latter, 6 were from the Southern States. Following 
are some interesting comments from these replies: 
I do not believe that the substitution of an optional yield tax for an annual 
property tax on mature timber would have any great effect in the States of Louisi- 
ana and Mississippi where we are interested. ‘There are very few owners of any 
large blocks of land in these States and, generally speaking, I feel that those owners 
will cut their timber as fast as the market will take it. However, such effect as 
this would have would certainly be in the direction of allowing more orderly 
marketing of lumber. [A. C. Goodyear of the Great Southern Lumber Co., 
Bogalusa, La.] 
I find it a little difficult to set down in definite form an opinion as to the probable 
effect on timber ownership and lumber production of the substitution of an 
optional yield tax for the annual property tax. It is my own belief that if a 
clean-cut change of this sort could be brought about and if timber owners could 
be assured that the yield tax rate would not be subject to unfair and unreasonable 
increases by successive legislatures, the effect would be to conserve our remaining 
timber supply and to encourage the use of lands, not suitable for agriculture, for 
timber growing. [J. H. Eddy of the Kaul Lumber Co., Birmingham, Ala.] 
We have in Wisconsin a yield-tax law, as youknow. That is, we can put timber 
under the forest-crop law or we can continue to pay annual taxes as heretofore. 
It does not pay to put the timber under the forest-crop law if it is going to be cut 
within a few years. Of course it is not possible to tell exactly how long because 
one does not know what the taxes are going to be, but probably if the timber was 
to be cut within 10 years one would be just as far ahead to pay the annual taxes. 
On a long-time proposition it would pay better to put the timber under the forest- 
crop law. [W. A. Holt of the Holt Lumber Co., Oconto, Wis.] 
The present methods of taxing our timberlands has resulted in a very serious 
burden to private timber holders and has created an urgent desire on the part of 
most of these timber owners to sell, or cut, or dispose of in any manner the timber 
that is costing so much in carrying charges, and I think if the owners had any 
opportunity at all to adopt an optional yield tax instead of the annual property 
tax on mature timber, their choice would be very obviously in favor of the annual 
yield-tax policy and, if this could be brought about, timber ownership would 
probably be more popular and the urge to cut and market in an uneconomical 
manner would be very much lessened. [W.C. Lubrecht of the Anaconda Copper 
Mining Co., Bonner, Mont.] 
If the yield tax per thousand feet is high, operators like ourselves, who are cutting 
100,000,000 feet a year and expect to go as high as 150,000,000, would be at a 
great disadvantage as compared with the operator who has the same amount of 
stumpage that we have but is only cutting 25,000,000 or 30,000,000 feet a year. 
[A. B. Hammond of the Hammond Lumber Co., San Francisco, Calif.] 
Will state in reply to point no. 1, that in my opinion a substitute of an optional 
yield tax for the annual property tax on matured timber would have no effect on 
cypress, because of the small remaining stand and the limited life of present opera- 
tions. As an owner of fir and redwood stumpage on the Pacific coast, will state 
that I believe a yield tax would be a great deterrent to the chronic overproduction 
in this region. [C. R. MacPherson of the Wilson Cypress Co., Palatka, Fla.] 
ECONOMIC ANALYSIS 
Old-growth forests present to their owners the choice of three 
principal management policies. (1) The forest may be cut beginning 
immediately without any effort to secure regeneration or to maintain 
a forest-growing enterprise; that is, it may be operated destructively. 
(2) The forest may be cut in such a way as to insure its continued 
productiveness, with or without a definite plan of conversion to 
sustained yield, either annual or periodic. (3) The forest may be 
held intact for future sale or cutting. It is essential to the purposes 
of this investigation to analyze the influence of taxation among the 
factors which determine an owner’s decision regarding the manage- 
ment of his forest. 
The second policy of management for continuous production would 
be affected by a well-administered property tax only to the extent 
