ECONOMIC SURVEYS OP COUNTY HIGHWAY IMPROVEMENT. 21 



and a total sale value after the roads were improved of $115,900, 

 showing an average value per acre before improvement of $20.48 and 

 an average value after improvement of $35.27, or a general average 

 of 70.2 per cent increase in value. 



In order to ascertain whether or not the increase in land values 

 was general throughout the county, or whether it was confined to the 

 improved roads, we obtained in the fall of 1915 values of three 

 typical farms on miimproved roads where the land was comparable in 

 agricultural fertihty with land on the improved roads. 



A farm in Livingston district, containing 1,000 acres, 12 miles 

 from an improved road, was sold at $7 per acre in 1914. 



Another farm in Livingston district, 10 miles from the improved 

 road, containing 148 acres, was sold in 1915 for $9.45 per acre. 



A farm in Berkley district, 12 miles from the improved road, con- 

 taining 190 acres, was sold in 1915 for $4.73 per acre. 



These three farms were stated by competent authorities to be 

 typical of values on the unimproved roads, and if the average of $6.89 

 per acre for the three farms is compared with the average of $35.27 

 per acre for the sales on the improved roads, it seems reasonably con- 

 clusive evidence that the roads have been a most important factor 

 in the increase of farm values. 



On the whole, it appears that the land along the improved roads 

 increased in value an average of about 70 per cent, due far more to 

 the road improvement than to any other cause. 



Again, it was acertained from the dealers in real estate that very 

 few farms had been sold in the county except those located on or 

 near the improved roads and that the increase in land values was 

 confined almost entirely to the improved road sections. Real estate 

 dealers in Fredericksburg asserted that they had sold more farms 

 on the improved roads during the single year 1911-12 than in all the 

 rest of the county combined during the preceding five years. They 

 stated further that prospective buyers had, in many cases, refused to 

 look at farms located on miimproved roads. Considerable areas of 

 farming land along the improved roads are now 'being cultivated for 

 the first time since the Civil War. Several tracts of land which were 

 covered with forest growth or brush when the first inspection was 

 made in 1910 have since been cleared and are now being cultivated. 

 A series of photographs, taken of the same location each year since 

 1910, illustrates this fact. (PI. I, figs. 1-4.) 



EFFECT OF ROAD IMPROVEMENT ON TRAFFIC DEVELOPMENT. 



To obtain basic data covering the development of the agricultural 

 and forest resources of the county and to aid in determining the effect 

 of the road improvement on such development, a careful record of 

 incoming and outgoing shipments of farm and forest products at 



