THE BOOK 



OF 



THE LANDED ESTATE. 



CHAPTER I. 



ESTATE MANAGEMENT. 



SECTION 1. Landed Property commercially considered. 



LANDED PROPERTY, like most other possessions, is bought and sold at 

 various rates, according to its money-producing qualities. In the 

 immediate neighbourhood of cities and large towns the price given for 

 land is sometimes very great. In such cases, however, it is neither the 

 natural nor artificial or cultivated qualities of the land that are taken 

 into consideration in estimating its value, but the adaptation of and 

 demand for it as a site for building and other industrial purposes. 

 Hence, in considering the subject from an agricultural point of view, 

 such conditions, as affecting the value of land, do not properly come 

 within the range of a work of this kind. Speaking in a strictly agri- 

 cultural sense, then, the market price of any piece of land is estimated 

 in accordance with its capabilities to grow crops of the kinds of plants 

 generally raised in the rural economy of the country, or to maintain 

 stock, as in the case of mountain-grazings and other pastures of a 

 strictly permanent nature. Locality as to markets, &c., has also an 

 influence on the commercial value of land considered as an agricultural 

 subject; although, no doubt, this has been modified considerably by the 

 extension of railways. Land may be naturally very productive, but if 

 the expense of carrying the produce to market is great, the effect of 



