FOREST TAXATION IN THE UNITED STATES 359 
In an exhaustive article by J. J. Hubbell of Manistee, than whom there is no 
better authority in Michigan on matters of reforestation, we find the following 
practical suggestions concerning the assessment of property and taxation of 
timber and timber lands: 
The excerpt that followed ran in part thus: 
* * * JT would advocate a separation of stumpage values from the value of 
the lands upon which they stand. * * #* 
By such a division the land itself could be assessed and taxed * * * The 
timber itself I would have exempt from all taxation as long as it is left 
standing. * 
As to the final tax upon timber, I would place the entire amount upon it at the 
time of cutting, and which for further convenience I will call the ‘‘ cutting tax.” 
I do not feel competent to say what this cutting tax should be, but it ought to be 
based upon a fixed pro rata of the stumpage value of the timber cut, and for the 
purpose of illustration I will place it at 10 percent as a maximum rate." 
Mr. Hubbell then went on to point out that to impose the maximum 
rate immediately after the enactment of such a tax law as he proposed 
would be manifestly unjust and to suggest a sliding scale of rates 
beginning at 2 percent in the first year and increasing by 2 percent 
each year until the maximum rate was attained. He estimated that 
such a law would net the State a revenue of $800,000 annually, 
besides preventing discrimination against nonresident owners, extend- 
ing the life of the then mature forests, and taking away from the 
timberland owners the excuse that they were forced to cut as rapidly 
as possible to avoid excessive taxation. 
Mr. Hubbeil was apparently the most persistent and the most 
esteemed among those proposing forest-tax plans, judging from the 
frequency of references in the State reports over a period of years. 
But he was not alone. The Indiana law of 1899, for example, had its 
adherents and was published in the same Michigan booklet (202, 
p. 88) from which the above quotation from Hubbell was taken. The 
1905-6 report of the Michigan Forestry Commission (203) contained 
several references to forest taxation. Mr. Hubbell was called upon at 
two different sessions of the Michigan Forestry Association meeting 
to discuss the subject. In one of these talks (203, Rept. 1905-6, p. 120) 
he discussed his plan of a separate land and timber-cutting tax and in 
the other (203, Rept. 1905-6, p. 114) made the significant statement 
that— 
If you are going to bring up the subject of taxation, bring it up for the whole 
State, applicable to the lumberman and the farmer and have it on the same basis. 
In addition to Mr. Hubbell, the president of the association, John H. 
Bissell, offered an entirely different plan (203, Rept. 1905-6, pp. 80-82), 
which he summed up thus: 
The rule should be: 
The assessment of all real estate by itself and without reference to improve- 
ments of any kind or any growing crop thereon—farm or forest—at the fair cash 
value of similarly situated and constituted neighboring lands; the growing crop 
not to be assessed for taxation; the improvements to be assessed separately. 
Alfred Gaskill, representing the United States Forest Service, in 
an address given at another session of the association (203, Rept. 
1905-6, p. 117), on the relation of the Forest Service to State work in 
forestry, discussed the proper legislation with reference to fire protec- 
tion and a suitable method of taxation “‘to stimulate planting rather 
than induce the rapid demolition of timber areas.’”’ The report also 
11 The excerpt appears to have been taken almost verbatim from Mr. Hubbell’s paper (193). 
