CALCAREOUS MANURES -PRACTICE. J25 



while various causes have concurred to depress the price of all good soils 

 much below their real worth. Whatever a farm will sell for fixes its value 

 as merchandise ; but by no means is it a fair measure of its value as per- 

 manent farming capital. 



The true value of land, and also of any permanent improvements to 

 land, I would estimate in the following manner. Ascertain as nearly as 

 possible the average clear and permanent annual income, and the land is 

 worth as much money as would securely yield that amount of income, in the 

 form of interest — which may be considered as worth six- per cent. For exam- 

 ple, if a field brings ten dollars average value of crops to the acre, in the 

 course of a four-shift rotation, and the average expense of every kind neces- 

 sary to carry on the cultivation is also ten dollars, then the land yields no- 

 thing, and is worth nothing. If the average clear profit was but two dollars 

 and forty cents in the term, or only sixty cents a year, it would raise the 

 value of the land to ten dollars ; and if six dollars could be made annually, 

 clear of all expense, it is equally certain that one hundred dollars would be 

 the fair value of the acre. Yet if lands of precisely these rates of profit were 

 offered for sale at this time, the poorest would probably sell for four dollars, 

 and the richest for less than thirty dollars. In like manner, if any field, that 

 paid the expense of cultivation before, has its average annual net product 

 increased six dollars for eacli acre, by some permanent improvement, the 

 value thereby added to the field is one hundred dollars the acre, without 

 regard to its former worth. Let the cost and value of marling be com- 

 pared by this rule, eyid it will be found that the capita! laid out in that mode 

 of improvement will seldom return an annual interest -of less than twenty 

 percent. — that it will more often reach to forty — and sometimes exceed one 

 Imndred per cent, of annual and permanent interest on the investment. 

 The application of this rule for the valuation of such improvements will 

 I'aise them to such an amount, that the magnitude of the sum may be 

 deemed a sufficient contradiction of my estimates. But before this mode' 

 of estimating values is rejected, merely for the supposed absurdity of an 

 acid soil being considered as raised from one dollar, or nothing, to thirty 

 dollars, or more, per acre, by a single marling, let it at least be examined 

 and its fallacy exposed. 



If the reader will accompany me through some detailed estimates of va- 

 lues, and arithmetical calculations, in regard to the grounds of which we 

 cannot differ, the truth of the result which I claim will be made manifest, 

 however startling and monstrous they may appear to some persons at first 

 glance. 



Assuming as sound and unquestionable the grounds for estimating tiie 

 intrinsic value of lands, as stated generally in the last paragraph, let us illus- 

 trate the position more particularly. The principle of valuation is that the 

 land is worth to its proprietor and cultivator such sum of money as would 

 yield in annual interest the same amount as the net annual product of the 

 land, after paying for all labor, attention, expenses and risks. Further, to 

 simplify the calculation, and also to suit the course of culture to the more 

 general practice of the country, let us suppose the land in question to be 

 cultivated under the ordinary three-shift rotation, of 1st, corn, 2nd, wheat, (or 

 oats,) 3rd, at rest, with no grazing when the land is poor, and with but par- 

 tial and moderate grazing (or mowing of clover) when improved or rich. 



Then suppose a field of the poor and thin soil most common in lower 

 Virginia, -under this treatment for some years previously, to produce, on 

 the general average, 10 bushels of corn to the acre, and 5 bushels of wheat, 

 or its equivalent value of oats ; and the value of the corn, at the barn, 

 to be 50 cents the bushel, and of the wheat $1. And let the joint and total 



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