SOME ECONOMIC INTERESTS 147 



employment can afford to pay this third element in the price of 

 land. 



An artificial barrier to the concentration of land in large 

 holdings would be the heavy taxing of unearned increments. 

 The motive for land purchases by the wealthy who do not farm is 

 largely the hope of enjoying the unearned increment which is 

 resulting from population increase, improvements in transporta- 

 tion and general progress. Deeds might be required to state the 

 true price paid, and the proof of fraud in the statement might 

 invalidate the deed. The purchasers would then have two strong 

 motives for having the price correctly recorded, first, in order to 

 get a valid title, and second, because whenever in the future the 

 purchaser became a seller it would be advantageous to him to 

 have had the full price recorded, since it would be the only 

 amount which he could receive untaxed. On the other hand, he 

 would not overstate the price lest he invalidate the title, and the 

 seller would not allow it to be overstated, if there had been an 

 increment since the previous transfer, because the seller is taxed 

 on that increment. If the actual price at successive sales were 

 recorded the unearned increment could readily be taxed. 



To cheapen land by taxing the unearned increment, and 

 rendering it unattractive to speculators, would tend to make 

 it more valuable to the man who would labor on it than to any 

 one else, and so to distribute it among independent farmers in 

 holdings no larger than they could properly cultivate. 



C. ADULT LABOR 



THE INFLUENCE OF MACHINERY ON THE ECONOMIC 

 AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS OF THE AGRI- 

 CULTURAL PEOPLE * 



H. W. QUAINTANCE 



THE social conditions resulting from the use of machinery are 

 even more difficult to trace than are the economic. Yet, even 



i Adapted from Cyclopedia of American Agriculture, Vol. IV: 110-113. 

 (Copyright, 1900, by The Macmillan Company.) 



