498 PRACTICE OF AGRICULTURE. Part III. 



3179. The price of labor is another regulator of the marketable price of land in a given district. It is 

 always right, however, to compare this with the habits of exertion and industry which prevail among 

 farm workmen, before the neat amount of labor can be safely set down. 



3180. The price of living, or expense of housekeeping prevalent among farmers, has its share of influence 

 on the value of lands. In the more recluse parts of the north of England, farmers and their servants are 

 fed, clothed, and accommodated at nearly half the expense of those of a similar degree, in many parts 

 of the more central and southern provinces. It is not here intended to intimate how husbandmen, their 

 servants and laborers ought to live. As they are the most valuable members of the community, they 

 are well entitled to such enjoyments as are compatible with care and labor. All that is meant, in 

 stating this fact, is to convey a hint to the purchasers of estates. For, in a country where frugality pre- 

 vails, lands of a given quality will ever bear a higher rent than they will where a more profuse style of 

 living has gained a footing. It is a work of time to change the customs and established manners of a 

 country. 



3181. The spirit of improvement, or the prejudice against it, which prevails in a district of sale, is a 

 circumstance of some value to a purchaser. For if the former is in a progressive state, especially if it is 

 still in the earlier stages of its progress, a rapid increase of rent may, with a degree of certainty, be ex- 

 pected : whereas, under the leaden influence of the latter, half a century may pass away, before the 

 golden chariot of improvement can be profitably put in motion. 



3182. In markets, more than in any other circumstance, we are to look for the existing value of lands. 

 Their influence is not confined to towns and populous places of manufacture ; for in ports, and on quays, 

 whether of inlets, estuaries, rivers, or canals, markets are met h*alf way : even by good roads their dis- 

 tance from the farm yard may be said to be shortened. 



3183. In this detail of the particulars of situation, with respect to the value of landed 

 property, we perceive the attentions requisite to be employed, by a valuer who is called 

 upon to act in a country that is new to him. A provincialist, or even a professional 

 valuer, who acts in a district, the existing value of whose lands he is sufficiently ac- 

 quainted vrith, determines, at sight and according to the best of his judgment, on their 

 respective values ; for he knows, or ought to know, their current prices ; what 

 such and such lands let for in that neighborhood ; what he and his neighbors 

 give, or would give for lands of the same quality and state, without adverting to 

 the particular circumstances of situation (they being given, in the established current 

 prices which have arisen out of these circumstances) ; resting his judgment solely on 

 the intrinsic quality and existing state of each field or parcel as it passes under his eye. 

 But let his skill be what it may, in a country in which he has acquired a habit of 

 valuing lands, he will, in a distant district, the current market prices of whose lands may 

 be ten, twenty, or fifty per cent, above or below those which he has been accus- 

 tomed to put upon lands of the same intrinsic qualities and existing states, find himself at 

 a loss, until he has learnt the current prices of the country, or has well weighed the cir- 

 cumstances of situation ; to which, in every case, he must necessarily attend, before he 

 can determine their value under an improved practice, or venture to lay down general 

 rules for their improvement. 



3184. The existing state of lands, or the manner in which they lie, at the time of sale, 

 is the next class of circumstances which influence their marketable value. 



3185. Their state with respect to enclosure is a matter of great consideration. Open lands, though wholly 

 appropriated, and lying well together, are of much less value, except for a sheep walk or a rabbit warren, 

 than the same land would be in a state of suitable enclosure. If they are disjointed and intermixt in a state 

 of common field, or common meadow, their value may be reduced one third. If the common fields or 

 meadows are what is termed Lammas land, and become common as soon as the crops are off", the depres- 

 sion of value may be set down at one half of what they would be worth, in well-fenced enclosures, and 

 unencumbered with that ancient custom. Again, the difference in value between lands which lie in a 

 detached state, and those of the same quality that lie in a compact form, is considerable. The disadvan- 

 tages of a scattered estate are similar to those of a scattered farm. Even the single point of a want of 

 convenient access to detached fields and parcels is, on a farm, a serious evil. And it is en the value of 

 farms that the value of an estate is to be calculated. 



3186. The state of the roads, whether public or private, within an estate, and from it to the neighboring 

 markets, or places of delivery of produce, is an object of consideration to a purchaser. 



3187. The state of the watercourses, or shores and ditches, within and below an estate, requires to be ex- 

 amined into ; as the expense of improvement or reparation will be more or less, according to their existing 

 state, at the time of purchase ; or, perhaps, by reason of natural causes, or through the obstinacy of a 

 neighbor, and the defectiveness of the present laws of the country in this respect, the requisite improve- 

 ment cannot be effected at any expense. 



3188. The state of drainage of lands that lie out of the way of floods or collected water, requires to be 

 taken into consideration. For' although the art of draining is now pretty well understood, it cannot be 

 practised, on a large scale, without much cost. 



3189. The state of the lands, as to tillage and manure, is entitled to more regard than is generally paid 

 to it, in valuing them. But even to a purchaser, and still more to a tenant for a term, their state, in 

 these respects, demands a share of attention. Lands, that are in a high state of tillage and condition, so 

 as to be able to throw out a succession of full crops, may be worth five pounds of purchase money an 

 acre, more than those of the same properties, which are exhausted by repeated crops, and lie in a 

 useless state of foulness : from which they cannot be raised, but at a great expense of manure and 

 tillage. 



3190. The state, as to grass or arable, is better understood, and generally more attended to. Lands in 

 a state of profitable herbage, and which have lain long in that state, are not only valuable as bearing a 

 high rent, while they remain in that state, but after the herbage has begun to decline, will seldom fail to 

 throw out a valuable succession of corn crops. Hence, the length of time which lands, under valuation, 

 have lain in a state of herbage, especially if it has been kept in a state of pasturage, is a matter of enquiry 

 and estimation. 



3191. Lastly, the state of farm buildings and fences is a thing of serious consideration. Buildings, 

 yards, and enclosures that are much let down, and gone to decay for want of timely reparation, incur a 

 very great expense .to raise them again to their proper state. And, when great accuracy of valuation 

 is called for, as when the purchase value of an estate is left to reference, and when the tenants are not 

 bound, or if bound are not able to put them In the required state, it becomes requisite to estimate the 

 expense which each farm, in that predicament, will require to put it in sufficient repair, so as to bring the 



