Conservation Service has published tables 

 showing the average site index for major soil 

 mapping units and major tree species. These 

 tables are available for use in classfying soils 

 by productive capacity. 



IMPLEMENTATION OF GUIDELINES 



Considerable effort will be required initially 

 to implement this assessment guide on the part 

 of tax assessors and the State Revenue Depart- 

 ment. However, the proposed guidelines offer 

 long-range economies in the administration of 

 the property tax on forest land. This system of 

 assessment is based on the productive capacity 

 of the land as related to site index. 



The first step in its implementation is the 

 classification of all forest land ownerships by 

 site index. There are two feasible methods of 

 accomplishing this requirement. One method 

 is to make necessary field measurements on 

 each forest property sufficient to determine 

 reasonably accurate site indices for the prop- 

 erty. The measurements required are relatively 

 simple and instruments required for the job 

 are inexpensive. It is possible that assessors 

 may obtain help from Georgia Forestry Com- 

 mission personnel in performing this work. 

 Assessors themselves could be given special 

 training in the procedures for determining the 

 site indices of a property, but since the job 

 will only have to be performed once in the 

 foreseeable future on most forest land they 

 may prefer to seek assistance from other public 

 agencies and concentrate their efforts on pro- 

 viding up-to-date ownership maps for use in 

 this project. 



However the job is accomplished, the objec- 

 tive is to obtain site indices by ownerships. 



Another method of obtaining site indices is 

 by the use of soil maps. As previously men- 

 tioned, the Soil Conservation Service has 

 mapped much of the land in Georgia by map- 

 ping units. These soil mapping units have been 

 grouped into woodland suitability by three 

 major resource areas. These areas are: 



(1) The Limestone Valley and Mountain re- 

 source area 



(2) The Piedmont resource area 



(3) The Coastal Plain resource area 



This information has been published by the 

 U.S.D.A. Soil Conservation Service. 7 



These woodland suitability groups are cor- 

 related by species of trees with site index. With 



proper ownership maps it would be possible to 

 determine site index on a given property with 

 these soil maps, with very little field checking. 

 If aerial photographs are available, species 

 groupings could be determined and the land 

 classified by site index with reasonable ac- 

 curacy in the office. 



The fact that the site index, which is a meas- 

 ure of productive capacity, seldom changes in 

 the absence of external factors means that this 

 job would only have to be done one time except 

 in rare instances. Examples of soil survey 

 maps and procedures for calculating the aver- 

 age site index of an individual property are 

 outlined in the appendix. 



TABLES OF VALUES BY 

 SITE INDEX CLASSES 



Once the land is classified by site index, the 

 assessor needs to know the value of the class. 

 It is impractical to expect each individual 

 property using the market, cost, or income ap- 

 proaches ordinarily used in forest valuation. 



To simplify the job on the local level the 

 State Revenue Department should periodically 

 calculate a range of assessed values to be as- 

 signed to each site index class for each of the 

 three resource areas of Georgia. These tables 

 should be published by the Revenue Depart- 

 ment and recommended to local assessors for 

 their use. 



The State Revenue Department, perhaps as- 

 sisted by a committee of assessors, appraisers, 

 foresters, and soil scientists, would consider 

 the productive capacity of site index classes 

 and determine a range of values for each class 

 in each resource area. General market condi- 

 tions and area locations would be considered in 

 setting these values. However, specific loca- 

 tional factors within the county which would 

 influence the basic land value would be de- 

 termined by the local tax assessor within the 

 published range of values for a specific site 

 index class. 



For purposes of illustration the following 

 tables are offered: 



Table 1. — Assessed values of forest land by site 

 index classes for the Coastal-Plain Resource Area 



(ASSESSMENT RATIOS 10-100) 



7 United States Department of Agriculture, Soil Con- 

 servation Service, Soil Survey Interpretation for Wood- 

 land Conservation, Georgia, Progress Report, 1961. 



Site index 



Ratio = 10 



Ratio = 20 



Less than 56 



$ 0.12— 0.50 



$ 0.25— 1.00 



56 to 65 



$ 0.50— 1.20 



$ 1.00— 2.40 



66 to 75 



$ 1.20— 2.00 



$ 2.40— 4.00 



76 to 85 



$ 2.00— 3.00 



$ 4.00— 6.00 



86 to 95 



S 3.00— 4.00 



$ 6.00— 8.00 



96 to 105 



$ 4.00— 6.00 



$ 8.00— 12.00 



106 to 115 



.1 6.00— 8.00 



$12.00— 16.00 



116 and over 



$ 8.00—10.00 



$16.00— 20.00 



28 



