CAUSE OF LOW PRICES OP LANDS. 227 



to improve, as well as improving the land held previously still 

 their very limited numbers and action can go but little way to 

 lessen the excess of supply of land offered for sale, over the exist- 

 ing demand of purchasers. We all know that a great excess of 

 supply over demand of any commodity, no matter how essential 

 for the use or even existence of the consumers, is enough to reduce 

 the market price to almost any extent. Even in regard to corn, 

 which every man requires for sustaining life, and which will be 

 wanting by every one, in certain and known quantity, for the next 

 as well as the present year, still a great excess of supply may re- 

 duce the price of this most indispensable commodity to one-third, 

 or even one-tenth, of what it may command when the demand as 

 greatly exceeds the supply. The market price of Indian corn in 

 Virginia, where it is the principal grain consumed by both man 

 and beast, has frequently, within a few years' time, ranged from 

 40 to 100 cents the bushel, according to the preponderance of 

 supply and demand. Indeed, within my farming life, it has sold 

 as low as 20 cents; and at another time, at $2 the bushel. No 

 matter what may be deemed the intrinsic value of any commodity, 

 no buyer will pay for it even half that rate, so long as eager or 

 necessitous sellers offer the like to him for a fourth, or for less. 

 So it is with our land. Such considerations, and the existing state 

 of our land market, may (and ought to) operate to prevent a buyer 

 from paying as much as $10 for the land which under different 

 circumstances of market price he would gladly buy at $50. Yet 

 in both cases of prices so different, the intrinsic value of the land, 

 and also its net product, might 'be the same. 



The excess of supply over demand not only serves to depress the 

 selling prices of both good and improvable lands greatly below 

 their true and productive value, but also it acts with much force to 

 repress the desire for and prevent the results of improving the 

 land in possession. For whatever may be the productive value of 

 any improvements of land, they must be estimated and depreciated 

 in market price by the same law of supply and demand as deter- 

 mines the selling prices of other lands of like value. Many par- 

 ticular farms in lower Virginia, by marling, have been doubled in 

 gross product, and thereby, perhaps, increased ten-fold in net pro- 

 duct and in true intrinsic value. And yet, when the death of the 

 proprietor, and the consequent division of his estate, or other causes, 

 have compelled the sale of such a farm, the additional price ob- 

 tained over the market estimation before marling, perhaps has not 

 paid even the small cost of that improvement. Hence arises a 

 great discouragement, at this time, to all improvement of land in 

 Virginia, which acts not only on those proprietors who look forward 

 to a future sale of their farms, but also on most other persons who 

 have no such expectations. 



