But this is just what cannot legally be done under our present
tax system. _By failure to recognize that the growth produced is
a crop, distinct from the land, grown at the owner's effort and
expense, and returning no revenue until ripe, the law now compels
the repeated annual taxation of the owner's effort to an extent very
likely to amount to confiscation._ It has been seen that even under
the fair system outlined in the preceding paragraph, forest growing
is not more than ordinarily inviting and involves considerable risk
and capital. Yet it assumed only a fair annual tax on the land.
Under our present system, logically carried out, here is what would
happen:

The first year the tax would be the same. The second year a fiftieth
of the total fifty-year crop, which we have assumed worth about
$140, or $2.80, would be added to the land; therefore not $3, but
$5.80, will bear the 30-mill levy, and not 9 cents, but 17 cents,
actual tax will be paid. The third year the tax will be 25 cents
an acre; at the twenty-fifth year it will be over $2 an acre. We
have seen that even a 9-cent tax amounted to an investment of over
$26 an acre in order to produce the crop. The continual increase
of this according to growth would make the investment run into
many hundreds of dollars if the same interest is calculated, and
in any case would make reforestation _financially impossible_.

In actual practice, the increased valuation would probably not
be made by the assessor in the manner just described. Instead of
determining the rate of growth scientifically and applying it annually,
he now makes an ocular reappraisement at considerable intervals.
In most cases there is no increased value, for the land does not