434 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



located u|X)n, or brought to subsist or employ, movable property; 

 and, as a rule, tlie more it employs or subsists, tbe more valuable 

 it becomes; and tbe greater the inducements or attractions it offers 

 movable property, the more it will have to locate upon it " ; citing in 

 proof and illustration the fact that the best acre of land in America 

 is worth nothing till man goes upon it with his axe, horse, cow, etc., 

 and puts it in cultivation and brings it to subsist himself, horse, cow, 

 etc. ; and from that moment it commences to have a value, by reason 

 of the fact that it employs or subsists the man (who, if he can be 

 called property at all, is certainly movable property) as well as the 

 horse, cow, etc. And if this acre of ground for any cause should 

 become attractive to and employ double the amount of movable 

 property, it will as a general rule become doubly valuable; and so 

 on, if it should become attractive to and employ profitably ten or 

 a hundred or a thousand fold more movable property, it would be- 

 come in like ratio more valuable, even up to the value of millions 

 of dollars per acre, by reason of the fact that it offers attractions, 

 and has employed upon it profitably five, ten, or fifteen millions of 

 dollars' worth of movable property. Of course, when ground gets be- 

 yond a certain value it must be put to other uses than agriculture, 

 and just this process acres of ground have doubtless passed through 

 since the Dutch first landed on Manhattan Island. 



There are exceptions to this rule — that immovable property is 

 valuable as it has movable property employed directly on it — for 

 it frequently has a greater value tlian movable property employed 

 directly on it would warrant. It has a value reflected from the em- 

 ployment of movable property employed on immovable property near 

 by, as in the case of residences in or near cities. For instance, the 

 use of movable property on a Broadway lot gives a great value 

 to the merchant's residence up town, by reason of the fact that 

 it is sufficiently near and convenient for it to be in demand for 

 the transaction of business daily at his store, all of which is attribu- 

 table to the employment of movable property at the store. 



The thrift or profit which immovable property offers to movable 

 property helps to regulate its value. For instance, a man owns two 

 pieces of property alike, say in different towns, rented out to mer- 

 chants of equal capital; one is enabled to make seven per cent per 

 annum only on his capital, for the reason that he has to pay three 

 per cent tax on his capital, and the other makes ten per cent net, 

 and pays no tax. The property paying ten per cent will be the most 

 valuable, for it will pay the largest rent, because there will be more 

 applicants for it than for the seven per cent; and the law of supply 

 and demand governing, it must rent for more. It is, however, im- 

 possible, as a general thing, for these two merchants to remain of 



