538 MISC. PUBLICATION 218, U. S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE 
been excessive is no comfort in view of the ever-present threat of 
excessive taxation in the future. The forest investor has no possible 
means of determining in advance what his tax obligation will be, and 
here is his chief indictment of the property tax. What he requires 
is a method of taxation under which he can calculate his future pay- 
ments, not of course with absolute certainty (nothing in the future 
can be certain), but with a degree of certainty approaching that of 
his other costs and with the assurance that his tax contribution will 
be, not arbitrary but in harmony with the needs of the taxing juris- 
diction and the contributions of other taxable interests. Here is the 
real heart of the problem of the general property tax in its relation 
to forestry. The tax presents a very substantial obstacle in the eyes 
of the careful investor who may be contemplating the development 
of a timber-growing enterprise from immature second-growth stands. 
The importance of this obstacle arises from the very large area of 
forest land in the United States where the mature timber has been so 
heavily depleted that timber growing must start there largely with 
very young stands. 
Here also it is necessary to recognize that the past slow development 
of forestry in the United States is due to a complex of factors, of 
which taxation is only one. Prerequisite to search for the solution 
of the problem, it is necessary to analyze these factors and find pre- 
cisely the place of taxation among them, thus dispelling exaggerated 
notions as to the influence of taxation upon American forestry and 
extravagant hopes of the benefits to flow from forest tax reform, while 
at the same time paving the way for constructive remedies. 
There can be no doubt that the majority of timber owners and of 
investors generally are not now interested in investing capital in 
forest growing on cut-over and second-growth lands. The hazards 
of such investments are regarded by most men as too great. Among 
these hazards, taxation is one. But here again it is not generally 
the chief one. Risks of fire and windfall and insect depredations and— 
perhaps most important of all—uncertainty as to future prices of 
forest products, all stare the investor in the face. The mere time 
element is enough to deter most investors. Even though taxation 
were made perfectly equitable, these other hazards would still be 
controlling to the majority of owners of cut-over land and young 
growth, in their present state of mind. Especially baseless is the 
idea that forest tax reform should make possible the employment for 
timber growing of all idle lands, in regions sufficiently humid to grow 
trees, that are not more valuable for agriculture or some other use. 
The simple fact is that there are in the United States large areas of 
land on which conditions are so unfavorable that complete exemption 
from taxation would not make it profitable for private owners to use 
such land for growing timber. 
SUMMARY 
Putting taxation in its true place in the picture, both of the old- 
erowth forests and of the immature forests and cut-over forest 
lands, should serve to dispel false and exaggerated hopes of the 
magic results to be expected from forest tax reform. But if tax 
reform is not capable of ushering in the millenium in American 
forestry, it does not follow that there is no problem of forest taxation. 
