326 READINGS IN RURAL ECONOMICS 



these classes of equipment ; but I think we are safe in assuming 

 that the quantity of implements and machinery did not increase 

 as rapidly as the increase in value reported. Statistics are avail- 

 able showing the increase in the number of each class of domestic 

 animals, as well as of poultry and bees, on farms, and the results 

 show clearly that the increase is largely in average value per ani- 

 mal and only to a very small extent in the number of animals. 

 The movement, therefore, during the first decade of the new 

 century was clearly a very small increase in the quantity of agri- 

 cultural property, but an extraordinarily large increase in the 

 reported value. 



When the quantity of farm property and farm production are 

 under consideration, it is easy enough to predict that the move- 

 ment of the next half century will be along the lines indicated 

 earlier in this paper (draining of swamps, irrigation of arid and 

 semi-arid lands, fertilizing worn-out land, rotating crops in the 

 most advantageous way, cultivating more intensively in order to 

 increase production). It is also easy to predict that the rate of 

 increase in the quantity of property will probably never again be 

 as high as it was during the nineteenth century. But it would 

 be hazardous even to attempt to predict what the movement will 

 be with respect to the values of farm property, further than the 

 readjustment in land values indicated above. We should keep 

 constantly before us, however, the remarkable fact that the 

 increase during the last ten years in the value of farm property 

 in the United States is greater than that which had taken place 

 from the landing of Columbus down to 1900. It would seem 

 reasonable to contend that this movement could not continue 

 at the same rapid pace ; and yet we cannot discover counter- 

 acting forces. 



Many reasons have been given from time to time for the in- 

 crease in the prices of almost everything which can be sold and 

 purchased. It is doubtless true that the various reasons for the 

 increase in prices of all other articles of exchange apply also in 

 the case of farm land and equipment. I wish only to add some 

 of the special reasons why farm land has increased in value so 

 rapidly during the last decade. Free land being practically a 



