FARM TAXES IN MASSACHUSETTS 



93 



business. Dairying is tiie most common farm enterprise and yet there are 

 thousands of farmers who specialize in orcharding, small fruits, poultry 

 cranberries, tobacco, onions and market gardening. Many farms combine two' 

 or more enterprises, which adds to the diiRculty of assessment. Such a wide 

 diversity of farm interests means a similar diversity in farm incomes, costs of 

 production, land values, and consequently, taxes. 



The topography of the state and the quality of the land are both dis- 

 turbing factors. There are fertile valleys and rolling uplands in close prox- 

 imity to swamp or rocky waste. There are many instances where market 

 garden land worth from .$200 to $1000 per acre is located within sight of 

 land worthless for any agricultural purpose. The last agricultural census 

 shows that of a total land area of over 5,000,000 acres, only 46 per cent is in 

 farms, and of the land in farms only 29 per cent is classified as crop land 

 Ihe average farm is made up of: 



Crop land 28.8 per cent 



Pasture land 37 q 



Woodland not pastured 26.7 



Other land 75 



If all farms were average farms, assessment would be comparatively easy 

 but the amount and quality of the above types of land vary for every farm 

 for every town, and for every |ection of the state. 



Of the pasture land, more than one-half is wooded, so that 47 per cent of 

 the land on the average farm is woodland. Onlv 30 per cent of the total 

 It'T.rL"^" ''' cultivated, including tillable pasture land. It is apparent 

 that the 70 per cent of land not cultivated, much of it brush and waste that 

 does not produce lumber or even fire-wood, creates a very definite tax prob- 

 lem in itself. ^ 



Assessment of Farin Real Estate. 



Farm real estate is assessed at a lower percentage of value than manv 

 other classes of property. Sales records are perhaps the best indication of 

 actual values where there are a number of sales over a period of years, but 

 sufficient sales data were not available for analysis. Consequently, owners' 

 valuations have been used with corrections as indicated. The following table 

 shows the relation between values as reported by owners and assessed values 

 of farm real estate on 214 farms in 8 towns for 1923 and for 41 farms in 2 

 towns for 1922. The values in 8 towns were obtained from farm management 

 records, while in two towns figures were secured through personal interview 

 with the farm owner. The farm management records were obtained by a rep- 

 resentative of the college who worked with the farmer in determining a fair 

 value for his farm. Where the reported values were out of line with neigh- 

 boring property, they were corrected by the farm management extension 

 specialist based upon his knowledge of the community. These values were 

 secured for more than one year in four of the towns, so that they represent 

 the best information obtainable on farm values in the several towns 



Town No 1 is the only town of the group in which there have been a suf- 

 ficient number of farm sales to check the figures given 



Most of the sales were of a speculative nature, several being for the develop- 

 ment of a new summer colony, and all sales reported were above conservative 

 ^^^^^^^^fovnre^^^ Assessed values were taken from the assess- 



