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Local Taxation on American Farms. 



tions have been made, sometimes by local officials, but more 

 often by unofficial students. But all the statistics thus far 

 obtainable have been subject to one objection — they have 

 necessarily confounded the affairs of farmers with those ot 

 the residents of villages and small towns. And even where, 

 as in Massachusetts, a census of farms has been taken 

 separately from all other property, with a statement of the 

 value of land, ot buildings, and of movable property sepa- 

 rately, the census makes no claim to a complete analysis in 

 these respects. 



The Secretary of Agriculture therefore directed the employ- 

 ment of a few experts to make a thorough investigation in 

 purely farming districts of those facts which need to be 

 known before any intelligent discussion of this subject can 

 be had. They were instructed to visit as many farms as 

 possible within the short period allowed to them, and per- 

 sonally to inquire and estimate the value of all visible 

 property upon each farm. 



In compliance with these instructions the experts person- 

 ally visited 1,114 farms m 1 895, in the extreme eastern and 

 western sections of the State of New York. They obtained 

 from the owner of each farm his personal estimate of the 

 actual market value of his entire visible property, separating 

 buildings from land, and also separating from the natural 

 value of the land in its primitive form the value given to it 

 by cultivation, for the purpose of studying the possible effect 

 of that provision in the constitution of California of 1879 

 which directs that cultivated and uncultivated land shall be 

 assessed alike : a provision which has been interpreted by the 

 American courts as meaning that the most highly cultivated 

 land is to be assessed no higher than it would be if it were 

 absolutely without cultivation. 



The valuation of personal property has been confined 

 strictly to that which the expert could see for himself. No 

 inquiry has been made into the farmer's bank account, 

 bonds, and mortgages, promissory notes, or invisible pro- 

 perty of any kind ; although, by the laws of New York, 

 farmers, as well as all other classes, are assessed and 

 subject to taxation upon this invisible property. Inquiry 



