E. T. Allen

“ Next to fire the most serious handicap to the progress of forestry is our unjust method of forest taxation. Laying as we do a yearly tax on both the growing crop and the land, the burden of taxation makes the holding of land for a second crop prohibitive as far as the private owner is concerned. ”

“ The great area thus denuded uselessly, with that which produced public wealth through lumber manufacture, together having been capable of affording a community resource of $165,000,000, are abandoned to lie idle and a menace to remaining timber. It is exactly as though the owner of a 165-acre orchard should destroy forty acres wantonly and also abandon the rest, unfenced, uncultivated and uncared for. ”

“ OUR INTEREST AS CONSUMERS Every person who uses wood, whether to build, fence, burn, box his goods, or timber his mine, is directly interested in a cheap and plentiful supply of timber. Every acre burned, every cut-over acre lying idle, raises the price for him without furnishing any revenue with which to help pay it. Every acre saved from fire, every acre of young growth, lowers it for him and puts money in circulation besides.
Similarly, the cost to the consumer of most articles of every day necessity is directly affected by the connection of forest material with their production. ”

“ The traveler or resident in forest regions simply fails to realize that his own welfare and that of countless others requires the same precaution not to let fire escape, and the same activity in extinguishing fires he discovers, that are accorded as a matter of course in cities and towns. In reality they are more important. A San Francisco can burn down and it is soon replaced. Insurance and capital come to the rescue, labor is employed, and business is resumed. But when the forest burns, industry dies and labor is driven away empty handed. ”

“ If riot or invasion should sweep our Pacific coast states, killing unprotected settlers, plundering banks and treasuries of $40,000,000 of the people's savings and business capital, and by destroying the producing power of commercial enterprise reduce the community's income by twenty-eight millions more, the catastrophe would startle the world. ”

“ Perhaps the most unique function of the Association is to furnish the only common meeting ground and clearing house for the many public and private agencies for forest protection. At its meetings Federal and State officials, representatives of public conservation associations and timber owners join on equal footing, without controversy over rights or authority, in discussing practical details of how to accomplish the best results together under conditions as they exist. Every man present is there because he wants to do his part, with his own hands or money, to preserve the forests of the West. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In short, selection cutting harvests the ripest trees of a perpetual forest, while clean cutting destroys the forest in order to start an entirely new and more rapid growing one.
Clean cutting is therefore necessary as well as natural in dealing with intolerant trees. But it does not follow that the selection system, although natural to tolerant species, is the only one adaptable to them. While the one class demands light, the other does not demand shade. It is merely capable of enduring it. ”

“ If this is done it will continue to be a source of tax revenue, to employ labor and support industry, to supply our forest needs, to bring revenue into the state, and to protect our streams. Otherwise it will become a desert, non-taxable, non-productive, a fire menace, and in every way worse than a dead loss to the state in which it exists and to the country at large. In the one way it will be of use to every citizen, whatever his occupation; in the other it will be a burden upon every citizen. ”

“ It is an incident to the unsound basis of production which still prevails. So long as a very large portion of our standing timber has not cost the owner much in either price, protection, taxes and interest, some of it will be put on the market at a low price in order to carry a milling business through a depressed period, to realize money, or for other exigency reasons. So may a wheat grower lose money on one or two years' crops. But if in the long run the world refuses to pay for wheat what it costs to grow it, wheat will not be grown. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The public will doubtless soon see that this is bad for the community, but will hesitate to forego present revenue in order to reap greater future revenue until convinced that the owner will actually reforest if given the chance. Even if no actual desire to take advantage is ascribed, there may be fear that he will make no active effort to start and protect the second crop, but will merely continue the course of least expense in the hope that a new forest will establish itself, with little to lose if it fails. Before he will receive the encouragement he deserves, he must prove his good faith. ”

“ Professor Fairchild, tax expert, Yale University: "Forestry must come some time, and its early coming is a thing greatly to be desired. We can hardly hope to see the general practice of forestry as long as the present methods of taxation continue. With regard to its effect on revenue, there is little to be feared from the tax on yield. It is equitable and certain. If a tax at once equitable and dependable is guaranteed, the business of forestry will not need to ask special favors." ”

“ Any western state can well afford to spend $100,000 a year for a forest fire service which will prevent a loss of fifty times that sum. The cost is imperceptible by the citizen, his benefit immediate. Forest protection is the cheapest form of prosperity insurance a timbered state can buy.
REFORESTATION Although it does not pay to burn up our forests, it does pay to use them. The faster we can replace them with new ones, the quicker this profit can be made with safety. Forest land is community capital. To let it lie idle is as wasteful as destruction. ”

“ FROM THE OWNER'S STANDPOINT Nor does the proposed system by any means either subsidize the forest grower or assure him a profit. It merely puts on a basis similar to that of other enterprises a business more greatly handicapped by long-deferred returns, risk of loss, uncertainty of future prices, and continued current expense without current revenue. Only escape from fire and high future stumpage prices will permit profit at best. Otherwise, since the tax is definite and not upon income, the forest grower will pay the community for the honor of providing it a resource at his own expense. ”

“ A selection forest is one in which all ages of trees exist, from seedling to maturity. It is the natural growth of species which are tolerant of shade. In a natural state, undisturbed by cutting, it maintains much the same aspect continuously, for as the oldest trees die, their place is taken by younger ones. Obviously such a forest must be composed of species, whether one or several, which can grow beneath its own shade. The understories of varying ages are as dense as their light requirements and the density of the overwood permit. ”

“ The inevitable tendency of the present system is continuance to pay on the land with speculative value for purposes other than forestry but abandonment of land valuable only for forestry, with destruction of the forest growth in either case, by purpose or negligence, because it means added cost of holding with no possibility of profit. Since the owner cannot be compelled to grow timber to be taxed at his net loss, no timber tax at all will be received by the community and its annual land tax will be confined to land worth holding without timber for purposes other than timber growing. ”

“ SAFEGUARDING EQUIPMENT The most fruitful source of fires is spark-emitting locomotives and logging engines. Much data has been collected showing that with oil at a reasonable price its use is economical from a labor-saving point of view as well as from that of safety. It reduces expense for watchmen, patrol, fuel cutting, firebox cleaning and firing. And since it is an absolute prevention, while all other measures merely seek to minimize the risk, it is probable that even where the cost of the oil more than balances these savings it will save in the long run by averting a costly fire. ”

“ Like the keystone of an arch, or the link of a chain, forests cannot be destroyed without the collapse of the entire fabric. Their preservation is not primarily a property question, but a principle of public economy, dealing with one of the elements of human existence and progress. Failure to treat it as such means harder conditions of life, a handicap of industry ”

“ Constitutional amendment and legislation should be invoked to permit a low fixed tax on cut-over land during the period of no return to the owner, the State to be compensated by a tax on the crop when cut. Obviously this inducement should be offered only to those holders of cut-over land who will reciprocate by furthering the object sought. The result of such a system would be not only perpetuation of the forest and its attendant industries and payroll, but also a far greater tax return than the present one of encouraging potential forest land to become worthless and non-taxable. ”

“ It is also why the progressive non-operating owner no longer considers fire loss the act of God, to be reckoned as an investment risk of several per cent. The man who does not patrol his timber nowadays is like a millman who hires no watchman, has no hose or sprinkler equipment, and carries no insurance. ”

“ The natural occurrence of Sitka spruce, except in Alaska, is probably limited chiefly to situations where it escapes competition, in youth at least, with the more hardy and rapid-growing species. It has the greatest advantage over these on river bottoms and flats where there is a dense growth of deciduous brush and where the soil is very wet in spring. In considering it as a possible second crop, the same competition must be remembered. Whether seeding is natural or artificial, the extent to which it will hold its own with any considerable quantity of other species is doubtful. ”

“ Believing that excessive taxation on standing timber privately owned is a potent cause of forest destruction by increasing the cost of maintaining growing forests, we agree in the wisdom and justice of separating the taxation of timber land from the taxation of timber growing upon it, and adjusting both in such manner as to encourage forest conservation and forest growing. ”

“ Forest growth is more rapid and certain than elsewhere. A heavy crop may be had again in from 40 to 60 years. It will hardly be of the quality of that now being cut, but considering the shortage then to prevail should bring fully as much wealth into the state from its manufacture, the majority to be circulated as payment for supplies and labor. Since, therefore, our denuded land should in 60 years or less bring in again as much as it has already, its idleness costs us each year a sixtieth or more of that immense sum, amounting to a great many millions of dollars annually. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Even now, when the western lumber industry is insignificant compared to what it will be soon, it brings over $125,000,000 a year into these five states. This immense revenue flows through every artery of labor, commerce and agriculture; in the open farming countries as well as in the timbered districts. It is shared alike by laborer, farmer, merchant, artisan and professional man. It is their greatest source of income, for lumber is the chief product which, being sold elsewhere, actually brings in outside money. ”

“ WHAT WE HAVE The five states of Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon and California contain half the merchantable timber in the United States today—a fact of startling economic significance. It means first of all that here is an existing resource of incalculable local and national value. It means also that here lies the most promising field of production for all time. The wonderful density and extent of our Western forests are not accidental, but result because climatic and other conditions are the most favorable in the world for forest growth. ”

“ TIMBER IS WORTH THE COST OF GROWING IT In other words, the value of anything is what it costs to produce it, whether it is a tree or a box of apples. That we found our timber orchard growing when we came to this country does not change this law. It was suspended temporarily while any individual could profit by the growth produced without cost, but began to operate again when he could no longer do so. ”