non-resident owner):

Though, in truth, these resident people often make their living
from the tax money of the non-resident, and though the latter
contributes toward every rod of road and every schoolhouse built,
and other improvement, yet he is treated as if he were a wrongdoer,
is taxed unmercifully, and, in addition, a trespass on his land
or forest is excused and it is almost impossible in many places
to get conviction.

If the State and local people had treated the owners of timber
honestly and had spent a reasonable part of the taxes in giving
the protection which the owner had a right to expect under the
Constitution, there would still be more than half of our pinery
lands covered by forest.

Forestry is no "sugar trust baby," as so many are trying to make it
out. Forests can pay taxes as well as any other property. Forestry
is like any other honest business, it cannot stand confiscation.

Suppose you have a twenty-acre lot of sugar beets and the assessor
would hang around until the beets are ripe and then figure: "The
land is good; I assess it at $75 per acre, and the crop is worth
$75 more, so that this property will stand at $150." What would
you say? But the assessor who assesses the timber as part of the
real estate and assesses the same crop of timber year after year
does precisely this thing. He assesses land and crop for the owner
of a woodlot and forest, while for all other farmers he assesses
only the land.

Let the State pass a few simple laws; provide for the protection
of forest property as we provide for other property; prevent
confiscation under the guise of taxation; stop forcing its poor
tax lands on the market, and go ahead with a good example on its
own lands, and instead of holding them in a waste land condition
protect them and grow timber.

A. T. HADLEY, President Yale University: We have it in our power
to make intelligent forestry by individuals more profitable. The
margin between business that succeeds and business that fails is
a narrow one, and by just covering that margin by _differences
in tax laws_, by differences in protective laws, by laws for the
prevention of fires, we can make profitable an industry which the
public needs, but which today is unprofitable.

JAMES O. DAVIDSON, Governor of Wisconsin: It is to be hoped that
laws will be passed encouraging owners to cut timber conservatively
under forestry regulations, rather than oblige them to cut as quickly
as possib