MR. URBAN AND A COUNTRY HOUSE 



rarely belongs to city purchasers. If such 

 a purchaser looks simply to agricultural rental, 

 as a justification of the enterprise, he can 

 hardly afford to pay more than two hun- 

 dred or two hundred and fifty dollars 

 an acre for lands adapted to easy til- 

 lage. But a largely qualifying circumstance 

 lies in the fact that all such lands near to 

 centers of business, take on an annual increase 

 of value by reason of the growth of the town. 

 In the last ten years such rate of increase in 

 all thriving neighborhoods might safely be 

 reckoned at six to eight per cent, for each 

 twelvemonth. This is, however, only true of 

 those farm-lands which lie so near to cities or 

 large towns, as to suggest the outlay of new 

 roads across them, or a prospective demand 

 for suburban building lots. In view of this, 

 the sagacious purchaser of a fifty acre farm 

 will not leave out of view — if he desires the 

 surest possible increase of his capital — the at- 

 tractiveness of the land for building sites ; and 

 if, as we suppose, his purchase be within fif- 

 teen to twenty minutes' drive of a growing 

 city, he will project his improvements, whether 

 of planting or grading, with an eye to its 

 ultimate adaptation for such purpose. 



Will the farm revenue of fifty acres pay for 



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