4 Bulletin 827, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture. 
of lumbering operations in sight, with increasing taxes on the non- 
productive land, and with no market to assimilate the oversupply, 
the owner of such lands was presented with an acute problem which 
resolved itself into the question of letting the land revert to the State 
for taxes, putting the land to some productive use, or developing it 
until it would be desirable for agricultural purposes and could be 
sold. 
In many cases land did revert to the States for taxes, but lumber- 
men began to realize that large portions of their lands had an agri- 
cultural value. They also realized that their lands required develop- 
