28 FARMING VERSUS LAND SPECULATION 



price of land. In short, the average value of land per acre rose 

 from $15.57 in 1900 to $32.40 in 1910, or one hundred and eight 

 per cent. In one decade, therefore, the value of the farm land in 

 the United States was more than doubled. Obviously the real 

 estate market in its present unorganized condition offers oppor- 

 tunity for speculative gains rivalling and even exceeding those of 

 the stock exchange or other organized exchanges. Is the farmer 

 the beneficiary or the victim of high-priced land and of land spec- 

 ulation? The farmer who depends for a living on the proceeds of 

 his farming is clearly the victim, since it is rapidly becoming 

 more difficult to become a land owner. An increase in the number 

 of mortgages accompanied by a decrease in tenancy would show 

 a healthy movement of renters becoming owners. But such a 

 movement is lacking. On the other hand, an increase in mort- 

 gages, accompanied by an increase of tenancy, shows an unmis- 

 takable movement of land ownership out of the hands of the 

 farmers into the hands of absentee landlords. This movement is 

 unhappily upon us. 



Commercial Value vs. Market Value. The selling price of the 

 products of the land determine the commercial value of the land. 

 When land sells for a price in excess of this value it has a market 

 value out of line with its commercial value and may be said 

 to be overcapitalized. This situation often exists, and may 

 be due to various causes. But whatever the cause, the results 

 are bad for the would-be land-owning farmer. Edwin A. Pratt 

 in his book on "The Transition in Agriculture," gives us a strik- 

 ing statement of the case from his own observation in England. 

 Says Pratt: 



"Looking in the first place at the price which the would-be peasant 

 proprietor must pay for his land independently of legal charges, it is certain 

 that the English agriculturist who desires to purchase a small holding in the 

 open market labors under special disadvantages. It is not alone that he has 

 to compete with a number of others possessed of similar aspirations, but various 

 causes have combined to give to much of the land in this country more, 

 perhaps than in any other country a market value which is in excess of its 

 commercial value that is to say, its value when it is wanted for the production 

 of commodities for sale. This is especially the case in regard to land which 

 might be utilized for residential purposes for the sake of the social advantages 

 afforded by the ownership of an estate or in the interests of sport. Not only 

 do established country families seek to increase their properties, for one 

 reason or another, by incorporating therein any bit of freehold they can secure 

 in the immediate neighborhood, but the market value may be kept above the 

 commercial value by reason of the fact that every Englishman, more or less, 

 who has prospered, thinks it incumbent on him to set up his 'place' in the 

 country, if he should not have one already. In either case a higher price 

 would be forthcoming than could be afforded by a cultivator who desired the 

 land as a means of obtaining a living thereon. Still more do these considera- 



