FOREST TAXATION IN THE UNITED STATES 423 
The converting factor used is $4.86656, the 1933 par value of the 
pound in United States money.” 
Outside of the above taxes, the national treasury also has a sub- 
stantial income from the post office, from crown lands, and from 
miscellaneous sources. 
Local taxation is of much less relative importance in Great Britain 
than in the United States. The receipts provide for local services 
such as street lighting and sewage disposal and give partial support to 
education, roads, and relief of the poor. The taxes paid to the local 
authorities of various kinds are aggregated in what are known as 
“‘rates.”’ These rates are levied on an assumed annual or rental value 
of land and buildings, which is determined from the gross estimated 
rental of the property by applying specified deductions. The system 
of rating is founded on traditional usage and is very complex. No 
attempt will be made to explain the system as a whole, since by the 
derating act (Local Government Act, 1929) agricultural land and 
woodlands have been entirely relieved of rates. Industrial properties 
were, at the same time, relieved of three-quarters of their appropriate 
rates, so that rates have come to be almost exclusively a tax on dwelling 
houses and lots. The local authorities are reimbursed by the national 
treasury for the revenue lost by derating. 
A minor local tax applicable to farms and some woodlands is the 
“tithe.”’ Tithes were originally a tenth part of agricultural produce 
paid in kind for the upkeep of the church. By the Tithe Commuta- 
tion Act, 1836, and the Tithe Act, 1925, these contributions were 
commuted to a fixed money payment. This tax has become burden- 
some on account of the severe agricultural depression, and the 
farmers are now (1933) resisting its collection and agitating for its 
abolition (229). Woodlands pay tithes only if the land was cultivated 
in 1836 and has since been planted. 
It is evident, then, that since derating has been accomplished local 
taxation does not weigh heavily on forest land. National taxation 
affects woodlands chiefiy through the income tax, including the surtax, 
and through the death taxes. 
THE ECONOMIC IMPORTANCE OF FORESTS 
Great Britain is a very sparsely wooded country and is dependent 
on foreign sources for all but one-twentieth of the timber and wood 
which she consumes. The woodlands are just under 3,000,000 acres 
in extent and constitute only 5.3 percent of the total land area, a 
smaller portion than in any other country of Europe. The trees 
planted in hedgerows and pastures give the landscape a wooded 
appearance, but contribute little to timber production. 
The existing forests are in part the result of planting operations. 
The most extensive of these operations which have been carried out 
on private estates were directed to the afforestation of areas in the 
Scottish Highlands. Plantings in that region were made on a sub- 
stantial scale in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (234, p. 12). 
These Scottish plantations were mostly formed of European soft- 
woods to which the climate and soil are well adapted, whereas con- 
temporaneous English plantations were chiefly made with oak and 
28 This par value is, of course, based on the gold content of the American dollar prior to devaluation and the 
official gold content of the British pound. 
