356 MISC. PUBLICATION 218, U. S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE 
and other forest trees * * * as * * * shall seem best adapted to 
increase and perpetuate an adequate supply of ship timber, within this Common- 
wealth. 
According to Hough (192)— 
the discussion in agricultural societies and by the public journals in this State 
(Massachusetts) on the subject of forest culture, and the various economies 
relating to forest products, date further back and contain more material than those 
of any other State in the Union. 
The efforts made to promote the cultivation of forest trees by prem- 
iums date from a relatively remote period. Thus, in 1804, even before 
the act above referred to was passed, the State Society for the Pro- 
motion of Agriculture offered a premium of $25 for the best growth of 
several varieties of trees of not less than 600 in number per one-quarter 
acre and $50 similarly if all the trees were oak. 
This same society persevered in its activities and in 1876, 2 years 
before the exemption law of 1878 was passed, offered premiums of 
$1,000, $600, and $400 for plantations of not less than 5 acres in 
extent, comprising at least 2,700 trees to the acre, if made on land that 
was poor, worn out, or otherwise unfit for agricultural use. The 
awards were to be made in 1887. However, notwithstanding the 
substantial amount of these offerings, the records showed that but 
two competitors were entered for the awards. 
EARLY SOUTHERN LEGISLATION 
Only two Southern States, namely, Alabama, 1907, and Louisiana, 
1910, embarked on a program of tax exemption, and they did so only 
after that particular phase of the movement had largely spent itself 
elsewhere. Furthermore the climatic factor as a reason for seeking the 
establishment or reestablishment of forests, potent in both the Middle 
West and Northeast, exerted perhaps a minimum of influence here. 
Rather it was the economic factor of threatening timber exhaus- 
tion which was then coming strongly to the front and stimulating the 
forestry movement. 
In fact the Alabama exemption provision was contained in section 5 
of the general forestry organization act of November 30, 1907 (Laws of 
1907, spec. sess., no. 90, p. 192), and it is specifically stated that the 
exemption is oiven “in order to encourage the practice of forest 
culture.’”’ The exemption was to be for 10 years, beginning 10 years 
after the owner of a tract of land assessed at not over $5 an acre had 
entered into and operated under a contract with the commissioner of 
forestry to plant or grow useful timber thereon as prescribed by him. 
Failure properly to comply with some technical formality in the course 
of its passage however affected the validity of the entire act of 1907, 
so that the tax provision was never used and was finally amended by 
the act of September 28, 1923 (S. L., Act 486, p. 638), which substituted 
a yield tax for the exemption provision. 
‘Louisiana, in revising its general forestry law of 1904, passed the 
act of July 7, 1910 (S. i 261, p. 446). Init was introduced for the 
first time, as section 13 thereof, a provision for forest-tax relief. 
This was framed on the line of the Pennsylvania yield-tax legislation 
then for several years under consideration but with the yield- tax 
portion omitted. This omission evidently was necessary because of 
constitutional restrictions, since subsequently the yield tax was adopted 
in a separate act after amendment to the constitution had been 
