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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. And we must also remember that the day is coming when our forested streams must do a hundred times their present duty, and when the lumber consumer's question may not be "What must I pay for a board?" but "Can I get a board at all?" We must have new forests coming as the old ones go.

      The Federal Government is practicing forestry in the lands controlled by the Forest Service. Why should the states not do the same thing with their school and tax deed lands? Intelligent care of timbered school land, selling the timber only under regulations which will insure reforestation, would realize as much today and in the long run pay a thousand per cent in dividends for the education of our children and our children's children.

      Further than this, there should be legislation to permit the state to solidify its forest lands by exchange, when advisable, and to authorize the purchase of cut-over lands. The eventual profit in this is certain to be great, and nothing will do more to interest the public and private owners in reforestation. It is the history or all countries that forests are peculiarly profitable state property, especially when, as is the case with us, it can be acquired cheaply. It is a sound and well-proved policy that it is well for the state to own lands which are not adapted for permanent individual development. Forest lands constitute the ideal class, not only because the state is in the best position to keep up their usefulness to the community, but also because they will earn perpetual revenue far greater than they could bring through taxation. They will pay back the cost and interest, become increasingly valuable, and still pay dividends.

      It is even more important that reforestation be secured on private lands, because their area is greater than that owned by state and government. With the encouragement which could be given the owner without any undeserved concession, conditions would warrant him in securing it. We have reached that stage in our development. The exhaustion of timber in the country at large, the increase of consumption, and our peculiar natural advantages, have combined to promise adequate financial return. And the lumberman does not want to go out of business unless he has to.

      OBSTACLES TO PRIVATE EFFORT

      To insure a second crop the lumberman has to lose more or less money when he cuts the first. His methods must be more expensive and he must forego present profits on trees he leaves. If he plants, the outlay is considerable. But let us suppose he is willing to do all this, not because he is a philanthropist but because he wants more trees to run his mill some day.

      It is a comparatively simple matter to get his second crop started. American forestry has solved this problem fairly well. It is also easy to calculate in most cases, beginning with the sale value of cut-over land, using safe estimate of the next yield and the time required to mature it, and setting a conservative future stumpage value, that growing timber ought to be a profitable investment. If that were all, we could leave the lumberman alone and count on him to perpetuate our forests because it will pay him to do so.

      But the whole calculation, consequently the public's interest as well as his, is upset by two factors—the danger that his investment will burn up and the practical certainty that taxes will eat up all profit before the harvest. If he figures on fire protection at his own expense against the hazard as it now exists, and the tax burden on cut-over land which is indicated at present, his engagement in forest growing will be negligible from the point of view of public welfare. In some cases he may hold the land awhile, in few can he afford to protect it, in still fewer is he justified in actually doing anything to insure reforestation.

      If a man proposes to build a factory or railroad in a community the inhabitants usually encourage him. They do not refuse him fire protection in the first place and then, if his plant burns down, threaten to burn it again and keep up full taxation on the vacant land. They offer every fair inducement to get the industry and keep it flourishing. They expect it to pay its just share of taxation, but want it to continue to do so as long as possible.

      TAX NEW CROP WHEN HARVESTED

      It has been shown that the first obstacle to reforestation of private land can be removed only by supporting a fire patrol and creating public sentiment which will reduce the number of fires. The second is even more wholly in the hands of the people, for by the system of taxation they impose they decide whether it shall continue an earning power and a tax source forever or be abandoned to become a desert; non-producing, non-taxable, and a menace to stream-flow. Whether its owner has made money on the original crop has no bearing on the result, nor has his being rich or poor, resident or alien. Cutover land presents a distinct problem to him. He will and should pay a full tax on its earning power, which will be demonstrated when he successfully brings another crop to maturity. But he cannot carry an investment for fifty years or more without return, with a risk of total loss by fire up to the last moment, at a cost which would bring him better profit in some other business.

      These facts are recognized by all students of forestry. The following authorities hold no brief for the lumberman. They approached the subject solely from the side of the people:

      Theodore Roosevelt: "Second only to good fire laws is the enactment of tax laws which will permit the perpetuation of existing forests by use."

      National Conservation Commission: "Present tax laws prevent reforestation of cut-over land and the perpetuation of existing forests by use. An annual tax upon the land itself, exclusive of the timber, and a tax upon the timber when cut is well adapted to actual conditions of forest investment and is practicable and certain. It would insure a permanent revenue from the forest in the aggregate far greater than is now collected, and yet be less burdensome upon the state and upon the owner. It is better from every side that forest land should yield a moderate tax permanently than that it should yield an excessive revenue temporarily, and then cease to yield at all."

      H. S. Graves, Chief Forester for the U. S.: "Private owners do not practice forestry for one or more of three reasons: 1. The risk of fire. 2. Burdensome taxation. 3. Low prices of products."

      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."

      CRYING NEED FOR DEFINITE STATE POLICY

      To accomplish these reforms will take law-making and law-enforcing. However well we study existing conditions and legislate upon the premises they furnish, success depends upon competent application of the laws and their improvement as conditions change. It is a bitter reproof to us of the West that Eastern states, with forest and water resources insignificant compared to ours, have gone so much farther in securing the services of trained men to study these questions and to guard both private and public interests. The very first step should be to get competent trained state foresters who will devise wise measures, protect us from unwise ones, and educate lumbermen and public alike to the common need of action. We pay cheerfully for every other kind of public service, for geologists, veterinarians, insurance commissioners, barber examiners, and what not. But the two things we must have—wood and water—we leave pretty much to take care of themselves, and they aren't doing it and never will.

      The essentials of a wise state forest policy, based not on theory but on successful experience elsewhere, are as cheap as they are simple. Where tried they have never been abandoned. If they pay elsewhere, can we afford

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