26 FARMING VERSUS LAND SPECULATION 



pinch comes they lose all. I am not the only man that has lost all through 

 them around here. If they would charge $1.50 an acre for selling, we could 

 stand that all right. And this county would boom if the ones that have come 

 here could make a success of it, and we could if we were told the truth before 

 we came here." 



The process of " unloading" land onto the inadequately in- 

 formed buyer is a practice which has assumed immense proportions 

 in late years. The tiniest village now can boast of its "Real Estate 

 Offices," with one or more men giving their whole time to 'this form 

 of trading, whereas, a few years ago the marketing of agricultural 

 lands was largely incidental to other businesses or was done by 

 private agreements. Apparently the only check to this form of 

 speculation and value-inflation (since there is ordinarily no organ- 

 ized Real Estate Exchange in the farm community) is the cycle 

 of financial panics which visits the United States. In panic years, 

 if the panic be a severe one, much liquidation in real estate takes 

 place. This entails fearful losses on the land speculators, including 

 farmer speculators. A good illustration of this was seen in Western 

 Canada in 1913 and 1914, when the banks ceased to finance land 

 trading. This was followed by a serious slump in land values, and 

 a general depression involving the usual feature of heavy liquida- 

 tions and business failures. 



That real estate values are subject to wide fluctuations, and 

 hence offer great opportunities for speculative gains, is strikingly 

 illustrated by the Report of Senator Peffer, on " Agricultural 

 Depression, Causes and Remedies," submitted to the Senate Com- 

 mittee on Agriculture and Forestry, February 15, 1894. This 

 year was a time of low prices, but was both preceded and followed 

 by a period of high prices. And this is true of every period of 

 low prices. The following quotations from this report show the 

 widespread depression in farm land values: 



"In Illinois improved lands fell from $20.81 in 1873 to $11.18 in 1892." 



"In Nebraska improved lands fell from $4.60 to $3.72, more than twenty 

 per cent since 1885." 



"In Kansas land was about fifteen per cent lower in 1892 than it was in 

 1874 or 1884." 



"In the New England states lands used for agricultural purposes are not 

 valued as high as they were in 1875 by thirty per cent." 



"There are many local influences which affect prices, and it is only by 

 averages that we can approximate the general truth in regard to the matter. 

 When men who own land are out of debt and do not want to sell, they hold 

 their land as high as they ever did; while, on the other hand, when the owner 

 is in debt or wants to sell, he does not strenuously hold up the price. From 

 the best sources of information accessible, the committee are of the opinion 

 that the prices at which farm lands in the older states could have been sold 

 during the last five years is at least twenty-five per cent below the level of 



