344 MISC. PUBLICATION 218, U. 8. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE 
recommendations and the work of the earlier committee, as embodied 
in the bill which had been passed by the house at the previous session. 
The bill which was finally reported out by this committee was debated 
for fully a week by the house and variously amended before passing 
and was further amended by the council, finally becoming a law on 
June 5, 1819.° While as a whole it bore a closer resemblance to the 
Governor’ s bill than to that of the original committee, the particular 
provision in the former concerning the valuation of forest land was 
not included. Contemporaneous press accounts of the debate, how- 
ever, do not indicate that there was any open opposition to the ‘forest 
provision, so that its omission may have been either an oversight or 
based on an appreciation that at that time and until forest manage- 
ment actually got under way the danger of overtaxation, which the 
Governor had pointed out, was largely theoretical. This latter con- 
sideration, indeed, may well have accounted for the fact that Wolcott 
did not press the point further, since when presenting a similar point 
in his letter to Congress when Secretary of the Treasury he expressed 
the following views concerning largely theoretical objections: 
An effect can only be proportioned to its cause; if, therefore, the theory should 
be admitted to be true, yet if its application to practical purposes is only to be 
justified by speculative reasoning, and shall appear to be unfounded in prob- 
ability, it may with propriety be discarded. 
However, it is not without some significance that the conditian should 
have been so clearly discussed that early. 
There is a further point in connection with this Connecticut tax 
episode that is worth noting because of the light it sheds on present- 
day forest-tax measures. The tax system which the ad valorem system 
was replacing was so far as concerned the property taxation part of it, 
a system of specific property taxes such as many now hail as a step in 
advance, so far as forest property is concerned. At that time, such 
form of taxes was roundly condemned. 
Thus Wolcott in his letter to Congress above referred to, in dis- 
cussing different systems in use by the States which might or might 
not be suitable to adopt for the Federal system, said: 
Taxes on the quantity of lands, without respect to quality, situation, or im- 
provements * * * are so manifestly unequal as to be altogether improper, 
except in countries very recently settled, and where the taxes are very moderate. 
A uniform tax on lands with réference to their condition or mode of cultivation 
would evidently be unsuitable except in a small State where the quality of the 
lands, and the circumstances of the people were nearly similar * * * 
Again in his inaugural as Governor he said: 
From scurces of information collected at different times, and from continued 
reflections, my mind is convinced that the effects of the present system are far 
more injurious than can have been generally supposed * * 
In like tenor, the tax committee of 1817 in its preliminary report 
(212) said: 
Lands, under the different descriptions of meadow, plow land, clear pasture, 
etc., are set in the list by a uniform rule and rate, without regard to quality or 
value (Hartford and Middletown meadows excepted)—consequently no more is 
paid on an acre of the most valuable land in the State, than on an acre the least 
valuable, of the same general description—the inequality of which is apparent. 
Following is the schedule of rates per acre at which different classes 
of land were listed, as given in the Governor’s special tax message (219): 
’ Connecticut Acts and Laws ,May sess. 1819, ch. 2 ,pp. 338-344. 
