be increased by
a method of taxation which does not prevent the development of
forestry. Forests paying a moderate tax are better than waste lands
abandoned and paying no tax at all.

The tax on yield has many decided advantages. It avoids the evils
of the general property tax. It is equitable and certain. It is in
harmony with the peculiarities of the business of forestry, and
will be a distinct encouragement to the practice of forestry. Its
adoption by the States would remove one obstacle to the perpetuation
of the nation's forest resources.

NATIONAL CONSERVATION COMMISSION, appointed by the President of
the United States: It is far better that forest land should pay
a moderate tax permanently than that it should pay an excessive
revenue temporarily and then cease to pay at all.

We tax our forests under the general property tax, a method of
taxation abandoned long ago by every other great nation. In some
regions of great importance for timber supply, and in individual cases
in all regions, the taxation of forest lands has been excessive and
has led to waste by forcing the destructive logging of mature forests,
as well as through the abandonment of cut-over lands for taxes. That
this has not been even more general is due to under-assessment, to
lax administration of the law, but to no virtue in the law itself.
Already taxes upon forest lands are being increased by the strict
enforcement of the tax laws. Even where this has not yet been done,
the fear that it will be done is a bar to the practice of forestry.

We should so adjust taxation that cut-over lands can be held for
a second crop. We should recognize that it costs to grow timber
as well as to log and saw it.

From now on the relation of taxation to the permanent usefulness
of the forest will be vital. Present tax laws prevent reforestation
on cut-over lands and the perpetuation of existing forests by use.

UNITED STATES FOREST SERVICE: It is evident that the old method of
taxing forest property, as well as other property, at its supposedly
full value will, as the value of timber increases and is recognized,
put a premium on premature and reckless cutting, and will hinder any
effort to reforest cut-over lands. No business man will engage in
an undertaking where the returns are so long deferred and the risks
are uninsurable unless he can estimate the probable expenses and a
reasonably large profit. That the forests themselves, irrespective
of their abil