362 MISC. PUBLICATION 218, U. 8. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE 
have to be further investigated before definite recommendations 
could be made. The second annual report (177, Rept. 2, pp. 7-9), 
showed that the Governor in his inaugural address had recommended 
that laws be enacted providing for a fairer system of taxation for 
forest lands, that a bill on the subject had been introduced, that the 
legislature for lack of time to investigate the matter thoroughly had 
failed to pass the bill but had adopted a resolution authorizing such 
an investigation, and that a committee, of which the State forester 
was a member, was hard at work collecting, translating, and examin- 
ing the forest- tax laws of foreign countries and those of the States 
that had any laws on the subject. The report of that committee to 
the legislature of 1906 (199), which was referred to the next (1907) 
session for action, presented both the data on foreign laws and a 
program intended to embody the essential principle “of the foreign 
laws but in such a way as to be in harmony with the prevailing system 
of taxation in Massachusetts. It called for the valuation of land as 
if there were no forest, to which value would be added the value of 
the average annual cut which the forest thereon might bear without 
over-cutting, the sum of the two to be the total assessment for annual 
property taxation. The recommendation came to naught, in part 
because the plan proposed did not sufficiently harmonize with con- 
stitutional limitations and in part, perhaps, because of a change in 
the forestry administration, by which both the State forester and the 
assistant State forester who had sponsored the proposal were replaced 
by those who had no special interest in the tax plan. 
The constitutional amendment question, which was essential to 
whatever forest-tax plan was to be adopted, first came up directly in 
connection with a commission authorized under chapter 142 of the 
Resolves of 1909 (S. L. p. 921). This commission was charged with 
investigating (1) whether it was desirable to classify property (in 
general) for purposes of ta:ation, (2) if so, would it be necessary to 
amend the constitution in order to permit such classification, and (3) 
was it desirable to amend the constitution. The action was precipi- 
tated by the recommendation of a 1907 commission, namely, that 
intangible personal property be segregated from the general run of 
property and be liable only to a tax of 3 mills on the dollar of full 
valuation, which proposal, when submitted to the supreme judicial 
court for an advisory opinion, was declared to be unconstitutional. 
The forestry interests thus embraced the opportunity to join forces 
with those interested in the classification of intangible property to 
urge a general classification amendment to the constitution. It is 
interesting to note that representatives of the Massachusetts Forestry 
Association, and others who appeared before the commission in behalf 
of forestry, ‘advocated the yield tax instead of the increment tax plan 
proposed by the 1905 Massachusetts commission. 
The resulting report (200) to the legislature, however, in summing 
up as to the advisability of classification, held that— 
the case of forestry, therefore, does not impress the commission as one that can 
be dealt with satisfactorily by a change in the tax laws under the proposed con- 
stitutional amendment. 
It furthermore opposed the general principle of classification and 
advised against the proposed amendment. Following this sere in 
1910 Governor Foss, in a special message of May 17, 1911 (S. L 
pp. 1198-1210), dealing with various phases of the taxation situation, 
a 
