226 VALUES OP IMPROVED LANDS. 



well founded but it is denied that they invalidate the previous 

 estimates. A farmer may, and generally does, obtain less gross 

 product from a large or a rich farm, than his more necessitous, and 

 therefore more attentive and economical neighbour gets from a 

 smaller or poorer farm, in proportion to the producing power of 

 each ; and even the same persons, when young and needy, have 

 often made more profit according to their means, than afterwards 

 when relieved from want, and having lands increased to a double 

 power of production. These, and similar facts, however general, 

 are only examples of the obvious truth, that the profits of land 

 depend principally on the industry, economy, and good manage- 

 ment of the cultivator ; and that many a farmer, who can manage 

 well a small or poor farm, is more deficient in industry, economy, 

 or the increased degree of knowledge required, when possessed of 

 much more abundant resources. In short, if these considerations 

 were to direct or influence our estimates, we should not be compar- 

 ing and estimating the value of lands, but the value of the care 

 and industry bestowed on their management by their proprietors. 



Another objector may ask, "If any poor land is raised in 

 intrinsic value (according to this estimate) from one dollar to 

 thirty, by marling, would a purchaser make a judicious investment 

 of his capital, by buying this improved land at thirty dollars ?" I 

 would answer in the affirmative, if the view was confined to this 

 particular means of investing farming capital. The purchaser 

 would get a clear interest of six per cent., which has always been 

 deemed a good return from land, and is twice as much as all lower 

 Virginia now yields, on a general average of the unimproved lauds. 

 But if such a purchase is compared with other means of acquiring 

 land so improved, it would be extremely injudicious; because 

 thirty dollars expended in purchasing and marling suitable land, 

 would serve both to acquire and improve, to as high a value, five 

 or six acres. 



The immense quantity of rich and low-priced land held for sale 

 by our government, and always in market, and the flood of emi- 

 gration thereby drawn from the old states, and especially from 

 Virginia, have served more than all other causes to depress tho 

 selling prices of our lands, and to discourage their being improved. 

 So long as rich land can be bought in any quantity for SI. 2 5 the 

 acre, though it may be under forest growth, and on the frontier of 

 civilization, there will be thousands of improvident or adventurous 

 landholders in the old states always striving to sell their impover- 

 ished farms, and to buy new settlements in the west rather than 

 resort to what they deem the slow and costly means for restoring 

 or increasing fertility. And though very many others now believe 

 that it is far more profitable to improve their own poor land than 

 to emigrate to new and rich and act upon that belief in buying 



