The Republican journal., 1908-03-05
ENCOURAGING PRIVATE FORESTRY
Tree growing to be Made Worth While.

lIe6-QTOWlQS " NC u1duV w WIN w hAhS'
A bill introduced by Senator COBB,
Chairman of the Forest, Fish, and Game
Committee of the New York Senate,
blazes trail that the friends of forest
preservation throughout the country
will find it we'll to follow. The Cobb
bill provides that land devoted exclus-
siyely to wood. timber, or forest pro
duets shall be assessed at rate not
higher than the rate of barren and un-
productive lands in the same tax DIS
trict. Owners may have their lands IN
spected by fOreSters detailed by the
Forest, Fish, and Game Commissioners
and secure advice as to the best meth
DDS of growing trees.
This measure recognizes the fact that
a really effective system Of forest pro,
| lection must enlist the good will and
the active cooperation of private inter-
ests. In the West the Government has
reserved over a hundred and fifty mil
lion acres in National Forests. That Is
a great expanse-larger than any en-
pire of Europe except Russia-but still
it is little over half the wooded area i'll
in the region west of the Mississippi
River alone, and hardly more than a
fifth of all the woodlands of the United
States, not counting Alaska East OF
the Missouri only the barest begin
nings have been made. The National
Government has done practically moth
ing, and the States have reserved only
@ $50. III acres, of which seven-eighths
are in New York ard Pennsylvania and
four-fifths OF the remainder in Wiscon-
sin. The future of cur hardwood sup
Div depends upon the maintenance of
the Eastern forests, and even If Con
gress can induce Speaker Cannon to let
it do something III the Appalachians
the bulk Of the work must be done by
private interests on commercial lines.
In its early stages the work of forest
| preservation was carried on m a spirit
of hostility to these private interests.
They were the enemy to be fought, the
vandals who were destroying the pub
lie birthright in cynical disregard of the
nations future But, after all. the de
stroyers of the forests-the lumbermen.
the wood pulp men, the makers of rail
road tieS-are human. They do not de
destroy for the sake of destruction
some OF them would really like to re-
pair their own waste. Many are a.
ready cooperating with the State and
national forestry services, systematic
ally repiantlug their cut-over lands al q
treating trees as crops, to be grown as
often as harvested. But here the
States interfere and penallze fore
thought By taxing the growing trees
they make it hard and often impossible
for the owner to carry the crop to ma
9urity. Paying out taxes and taking
nothing in for thirty years is calculated
to chill the enthusiasm of the average
business man. The proper time to tax
trees is when they are cut. When the
owner is about to realize on his crop the
State may take such a share of the pro
ceeds as it thinks just. But while the
new forest is growing, restoring life to
barren hillsides and protecting the
sources of the streams that are the ar
teries of the commonwealth, it is a
ruinous policy to force its destruction
| by levying fines on existence.
The American Paper and Pulp AS
ISOLATION, at its meeting on February 7,
| adopted resolutions in this sense. 1T
declared that "the public should EN-
courage the preservation of the forests
| by the owners by sharing with them the
| burden entailed thereby, more partlcu-
| larly in the following manner: ~ 10y
reducing taxation to minimum, so as
to encourage conservative cutting (2)
by applying the taxes received from
wild lands to their protection from fire
and to reforestation of burned or al
ready denuded DISTRICTS
The old-fashioned methods of lumber
| ing, under which third of the wood
was wasted have been replaced by
economical processes which enable al
most everything to be utilized. The
national Forest Service offers its coop
Grafton to all owners of woodlands who
wish to undertake scientific replanting.
The lumbermen whose sources of sup
DIV have been exhausted, the railroads
which are beginning to suffer from a
shortage of ties, and the wood-pulp men
who foresee time of famine for their
mills, are anxious to restore their de-
pleted resources. The chief obstacle in
the way of a general movement In this
direction is the barbarous taxing sys-
tenn of the States.-Collier's Weekly
| Feb. 22nd.