SOME ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF FARM OWNERSHIP 21 
family under conditions independent of the direction of employers 
other than themselves. Again, their desire to own farm real estate 
may have been founded on expectation of enjoyments not fully 
stated in terms of dollars and cents. Some may have been actuated 
by the belief that owning the land afforded an opportunity to make 
the property develop a use value to them much larger than that 
indicated by the amounts paid by tenants. 
During some of the later years these farms were being held at 
prices which, assuming no decline from the high interest rates pre- 
vailing, would require a constant annual increase of between 15 and 
30 cents a year, leaving taxes out of account, and between 18 and 
35 cents a year, making no allowance for tax decline. It would re- 
quire considerable optimism to expect such an increase of rents to 
continue through the decades during which present worth would 
be materially influenced by such anticipations, or to expect corre- 
sponding reductions in interest rates or cooperation of the two factors 
to the necessary extent. 
In any event, it is apparent that potential buyers who might have 
purchased these farms would have had to do so in 1911 or before to 
find the computed valuation, when at its peak in 1916, equal to the 
market valuation at the time they bought; and they would have had 
to buy in 1908 or before to find the computed valuation in 1920 
larger than the market valuation when they purchased. If unable to 
get a larger use value than these holders and if unable to avoid 
paying the going rate of interest on more than half the realty valua- 
tion, it would have been impossible for the purchasers to meet in- 
terest payments on the entire valuation from the net earnings of 
the property and difficult to do so even if they had acquired a sub- 
stantial equity. Had the tenants on these farms, for example, ven- 
tured into the ownership of such farms in 1908 or before, they would 
have been favored by decline of interest rates and increase of realty 
incomes and valuations. Had they ventured into farm purchase 
during periods having less helpful trends and aftermaths, their 
climb to a debt-free status would have taken place under greater 
difficulties. 
From whatever motives these owners held this property or from 
whatever motives others wished from time to time to buy some of 
this property, the fact remains that these owners held the land while 
increments accrued upon it. The persistence and growth of the in- 
crements was marked. 
From Figure 5 it appears that as a source of annual benefits to 
these landowners net increment outweighed primary net rent most 
of the former half of the quarter century included in the study. 
During the latter half of the period, however, rent generally out- 
weighed increment, especially during the five years 1910-1914. 
After 1902 the relative prominence of increment diminished until 
1912. A considerable expansion in the relative prominence of in- 
crement occurred in the years of the World War. Taking the 
quarter century as a whole, increment lacked but little of being of 
equal weight with rent. It is not surprising that dependence on in- 
crement came to be a factor in the calculations of those who owned 
or contemplated the purchase of farms in this district. 
These owners were apparently furnishing their tenants with real 
estate at a rental charge per hundred dollars’ worth that was much 
