10 
BULLETIN 1068, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
CHANGES OF FARM VALUES IN RELATION TO TENURE. 
Agriculture in the black land has passed in 60 years from the pion- 
eering stage of 1860, when the best land was plentiful and relatively 
cheap, to the well-established system of crop growing of 1920, with 
all but the very poorest land in use. As one would expect, this 
change has affected land values more than it has affected equipment 
values on the average farm. 
Land values rose from an average of $5.57 an acre in 1860 to 
$116.47 in 1920, an increase of 20.9 times $5.57, while during the 
same time the value of equipment per acre rose from $3.48 to $12.56, 
an increase of only 3.6 times $3.48 (see Table 7) . 
The general depression following the Civil War caused both land 
and equipment values to decline from 1860 to 1870. However, equip- 
ment values continued to decline until 1880, owing to the breaking up 
of the stock-raising industry. There was 1 animal unit for each 
4.4 acres of land in farms in 1870 and 1 for each 6.7 acres in 1880. 
The striking increase in farm operators between 1890 and 1900, 
however, did not greatly affect land values, which increased only 
38.9 per cent during the decade as compared with an increase of 95.5 
per cent for the previous decade and 93.8 per cent for the decade 
following. 
Table 7. — Average farm values per acre in the black land, by decades, since I860. 1 
Census year. 
Average Average 
value of value of 
land and ; equip- 
buildings ment 
per acre. 1 per acre. 
Average 
value of 
machin- 
ery 
per acre. 
Average 
value of 
live 
stock 
per acre. 
1860 
$5.57 
5.45 
9.07 
17.73 
24.63 
47.74 
116.47. 
$3.48 $0.31 
3.13 .28 
2.44 .48 
4.06 I .61 
5.10 ! 1.09 
7.41 | 1.51 
12.56 1 
$3.17 
1870 
2.85 
1880 
1.96 
1890 
3.45 
1900 : 
4.01 
1910 
5.90 
1920 
8.41 
1 Computed from U. S. Census data. 
The increase in land values since 1900 has been 4.8 times as great as 
the increase during the four decades previous to that date. This 
phenomenal increase in the value of land occurred in a period 
when the size of the farm, the system of farming, and the number of 
farm operators practically remained unchanged. 
This great increase in value was largely the result of competition 
for the purchase of the land's annual use value (present and pros- 
pective) without any significant change in the number of operators. 
This statement is supported by the fact that the bonus system (see 
p. 13) grew up during the decade from 1900 to 1910, although the 
