Page:Report of the Oregon Conservation Commission to the Governor (1908 - 1914).djvu/265

 fully grasp the community interest of our timber resources advancement will be slow. The danger lies in not grasping this until too late. The student of forest economics looking at the forests of Oregon from the view point of their effect upon agricultural development, the use of water for power purposes, as a field for labor affecting all classes, whether the professional or business man or the daily wage earner, and as a source of tax revenue, cannot understand why any state fails to exercise the most careful supervision over this natural resource. The fact that we have a wealth of timber has, however, blinded the ordinary citizen to its importance. A condition where timber, even fire wood, is scarce and has to be used sparingly cannot be realized by people living in Oregon, and yet such a state of affairs has come about in sections once heavily timbered and can come about here through failure to be forewarned.

It is not the desire of this Commission to recommend that any land which can be successfully tilled be kept in forest. A considerable area at present covered with timber will some day furnish farms for a growing population. But probably at least 80 per cent of the timbered part of the State can never be successfully used for agriculture. To find a use to which this vast area can be put and return revenue to the owners and taxes to the State is in itself an enormous problem. So far as can be seen its greatest use must be to again bear a forest crop. To see that this happens is certainly the duty of the State. It must not be left to chance, its performance must be assured.

The duty of the State must therefore be to encourage forest protection and perpetuation. The essentials to this are:


 * 1) Adequate appropriation of not less than $100,000 the next two years for forest protection.
 * 2) Such changes in the present system of taxation as will tend to encourage the private owner to hold his cutover land for reforestation purposes, and not prematurely strip his present holdings.
 * 3) The acquisition of a State Forest through exchange of school sections within the National Forests for a solid block of timber.
 * 4) Provision for the purchase of cut-over and burned-over land by the State and provision for the re-forestation of these lands which should be held by the State as a future supply of timber.