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STATE OWNERSHIP OF FOREST LANDS. 
In our country restriction of private control of forest property will, at 
present at least, not readily be permitted, and if enacted by law the 
execution of the law will certainly be circumvented in some way or 
other. The only proper method, therefore, is the acquisition of the 
lands which should be kept under forest cover in perpetuity by the 
State. Such ownership is logical, for the State, the community at large, 
is the only person interested in the future. Forest crops being a long 
time maturing, much longer than the average life of an individual, 
furnish little incentive to private capital, unless it be of persistent 
corporations or of the very wealthy who can aftord to forego present 
revenues from their investments for the sake of their heirs. 
As the report shows, about 37 per cent of the forest area of the State 
of Wisconsin is situated on land too poor for successful agriculture or 
on forest soil proper. These lands are the ones that the State or the 
counties should at least own and maintain for forest production, and 
the sooner they are taken by the State and placed under proper pro- 
tection and management the better for the Commonwealth and the 
recuperation of lost ground. For the existence of this unproductive 
area in the hands of private owners is a danger to the State in mure 
than one way. 
The interest of the present owners, mostly lumbermen, who have 
taken the useful material from the land is small indeed, and especially 
in regard to its conditions and the growth on it. Even if they could 
they would hardly go to any trouble to protect this for the present 
unremunerative investment against fire, and hence it is a constant 
danger as a Starting ground of forest fires to adjoining property. The 
burden of taxation either induces the owner to abandon the land, and 
it becomes ownerless for a time and nobody’s charge or responsibility, 
or else he turns it over to some speculator who tries to sell it to some 
poor deluded settler, thus increasing the area of unprofitable farms 
without barns. ) 
There is just now, we are informed, a syndicate at work selling such 
nonagricultural lands, and even counties are disposing of such prop- 
erty. which they have inherited through the nonpayment of taxes, for 
a mere song ($12 per forty), for a use for which such lands are not fit, 
and to people who can only become impoverished by the attempt at 
farming the same. These lands should all remain or become com- 
munal property either of the State or of the county, and be devoted to 
wood cropping. 
The State lands and those held for public institutions, some 340,000 
acres, should of course at once be placed under the management of the 
forest commissioner. As to the manner in which the State should 
acquire the lands which it should possess—the 7,000,000 acres of forest 
_soil—it is proper to consider that, since their acquisition is largely for 
the benefit of the future, the cost of acquiring them should also entirely 
16479—No. 16——2 3 
