THE RENT AND VALUE OF FARM LAND 



623 



retain as personal profits, an extra product on the marginal land above 

 what the marginal farmers can produce on such land, and must be 

 allowed a profit equally large on the better land to keep them from 

 outbidding the marginal farmers for marginal land and driving them 

 out of the farming business, the differential rent will be less than the 

 actual difference in the value of the product of the more productive 

 and that of the marginal land. 



FIG. i 



Let us suppose that the land which is necessary to supply tne 

 demand for a certain class of agricultural products, such, for example, 

 as the products of the diversified agriculture of the corn belt, varies 

 in productivity from A to B, that A grade land is twice as productive 

 as B grade land, and that all other land under consideration is more 

 productive than B and less productive than A grade land (see Fig. i). 

 Suppose, also, that all the farmers who are able to compete for the 

 use of this land at a given time vary in efficiency from C to D (as 

 represented in Fig. i), that the farmer who has C degrees of efficiency 



