LINE OF LEAST RESISTANCE 53 



in 1871. The value of the same acre product 

 to-day is more than twice what it was in 1896. 

 We have seen that the price of land, culti- 

 vable land, remained practically unchanged 

 for half a century. Men figured land as worth 

 only the value of time necessary to fit it for 

 the plow, so long as there were other virgin 

 acres to be had for the asking. 



But what happens when there is no more 

 land to be had for the asking? The answer 

 is told in the census figures for 1910. 



The tax value of the average acre of farm 

 land in 1900 was $15.57. 



The tax value of the average acre of farm 

 land in 1910 was $32.40. 



The increase in land values in those ten 

 years was 118.1 per cent. Land has suddenly 

 become capital, means something beyond 

 merely a means of labor. For every $100 that 

 land possessed in value in 1900, it increased 

 $11.81 annually during the next ten years. 



Stop a moment and consider what this 

 means, particularly in relation to the so-called 

 "back-to-the-land movement." These figures 

 apply to the average acre nominally in 

 farms - - 878,000,000 acres in 1910. It 

 weighs in the same scale the unproductive 



