220 OUT-OF-TOWN PLACES. 



short, it is worth less. In general, I should say that 

 any easily-tilled, fairly productive land, within three 

 miles of a good market, (by which I mean any city 

 of twenty-five to forty thousand inhabitants,) ought, 

 upon a ten years' lease, to pay a rental of at least 

 twelve to fifteen dollars per acre. This supposes, 

 however, full agricultural or horticultural aptitude on 

 the part of the manager a qualification which rarely 

 belongs to city purchasers. If such a purchaser looks 

 simply to agricultural rental, as a justification of the 

 enterprise, he can hardly afford to pay more than two 

 hundred or two hundred and fifty dollars an acre for 

 lands adapted to easy tillage. But a largely qualify- 

 ing circumstance lies in the fact that all such lands 

 near to centres of business, take on annual increase 

 of value by reason of the growth of the town. In 

 the last ten years such rate of increase in all thriving 

 neighborhoods might safely be reckoned at six to 

 eight per cent, for each twelvemonth. This is, how- 

 ever, only true of those farm-lands which lie so near 

 to cities or large towns, as to suggest the outlay of 

 new roads across them, or a prospective demand for 

 suburban building lots. In view of this, the sagacious 

 purchaser of a fifty acre farm will not leave out of 

 view if he desires the surest possible increase of his 

 capital the attractiveness of the land for building 

 sites ; and if, as we suppose, his purchase be within 



