18 



TWENTY-XIXTH FRUIT-GROWERS" CONVENTION. 



among manufacturers, the reply was 37.2 per cent. 954 farnjers in 

 sixty-four counties stated that their gross earnings amounted to $871,357, 

 and their taxes $37,297, or ahout 4.2 per cent of gross receipts. 656 

 farmers reported from fifty-eight counties, giving their gross income 

 $687,469, and their income less expenses $204,152. the ratio being 70.3; 

 the taxe> of these 656 farmers being 13 per cent of income. Of 592 

 farmer > the ratio of assessed to true value was, land 38, implements 

 28.7, live stock 45.2. Except land, live stock is assessed closer to its 

 amount and closer to its real value than is any other class of property. 



In California, Professor Plehn, in his " General Property Tax in Cali- 

 fornia," says: "The census estimates of the true value of farming 

 property are more reliable than are the census returns on the true 

 valuation of city real estate, because the value of farming prop- 

 erty was ascertained by the enumerators." In 1890 and 1891 the 

 assessed value of the farm lands and improvements was between 62 and 

 66 per cent of the true valuation. In the same years the assessed value 

 of city real estate was 54 per cent and 55 per cent. Continuing. Pro- 

 fessor Plehn says: ''It would seem, then, that the average farmer's real 

 estate, which constitutes 90 per cent of all his taxed property, is prob- 

 ably assessed at from 8 to 12 per cent higher than the average towns- 

 man's real estate, which forms but 80 per cent of all taxed property. 

 It is undoubtedly true that the 90 per cent represents more nearly the 

 true proportion between the farmer's real estate and his personal prop- 

 erty than the 80 per cent does the proportion between the real estate 

 and the personal property in towns." 



Justice Cooley. in his work on taxation, says: ""The assessment of 

 personal property reaches so small a portion of the amount really pro- 

 tected by government that it might almost be said that laws for the 

 purpose remain on the statute books rather as incentives to evasion 

 and fraud in the dealings of the citizen with the State than as a means 

 of raising a revenue for public purposes." This might aptly be applied 

 to the system for the taxation of corporations as well as intangible 

 personalty in many of the States, a system that puts a premium upon 

 evasion and in-flicts a penalty upon honesty and icealiiess. 



The remedies seem to lie in the adoption, by the several States work- 

 ing in harmony so far as may be, of new and modern methods based 

 on correct principles for the taxation of special forms of property, 

 separate and distinct from the general property tax in respect to both 

 valuation and rates of taxation, and a thorough administration thereof. 



In the States investigated there has been more or less departure 

 from the general property tax toward the adoption of special methods 

 for the taxation of corporations. AVith few exceptions, however, efforts 

 in that direction have thus far been devoid of real method or design, 



