8 BULLETIN 874, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
these there were several sales at $600 or more. The writers have 
found references to a number of other cases of sales at $600 or more 
in a large number of clippings from Iowa newspapers. In one case 
the rate of sale was more than $900 per acre. This, however, in- - 
volved only 10 acres of land and probably represented residential 
value. It is also true that a considerable number of other sales at 
$600 or more were small tracts, probably used as truck farms or for 
some other intensive purpose. The importance of the comparatively 
few sales at $400 or more was so exaggerated by newspaper publicity 
that the general public were led to believe $400 to be the going value | 
of Iowa farm land as a whole. 
EXTENT OF ACTIVITY IN BUYING AND SELLING FARMS, 1919. 
PERIOD OF THE “BOOM.” 
Taking the State of Iowa as a whole, the unusual activity in land 
sales covers the period from the early spring of 1919 until the middle 
of the month of September. There are some indications that in- 
creased activity in land transfers occurred in certain counties in the 
fall of 1918, especially in Sioux, Plymouth, Cass, and Sac Counties. 
For this reason investigators were frequently told that the “boom” 
began in northwestern Iowa and spread from that region as a center. 
It seems clear, however, that while this tendency for the activity to 
spread from one county to another was more or less manifest and 
was intensified in every county by the stories of activity and of 
rapidly increasing values of other parts of the State, as well as by 
the movement from county to county of real estate agents, specu- 
lators, and buyers seeking to replace lands already sold, the entire 
movement was more or less spontaneous throughout the State. It 
was unquestionably due largely to general conditions everywhere 
favorable to such a tendency. Broadly speaking, the activity proba- 
bly began a little earlier in some of the counties in the northwestern 
part of the State and a little later in some of the counties of the 
northeastern part of the State than in the majority of counties. 
PROPORTION OF FARMS SOLD. 
From the degree of excitement which prevailed during the spring 
and summer of 1919, one might have. formed the conclusion that 
nearly all the farms of the State of lowa were changing hands. In 
order to determine what proportion of the farms of the State were 
actually being sold, inquiries were made of real estate men, bankers, 
and other well-informed persons as to what proportion of the farms 
of their communities had changed hands during the ‘‘boom.” The 
average of 93 estimates from 34 counties is 8.9 per cent’, or 6,250 
1A recent statement issued by’a large Iowa trust company gives 19,600 as the number of farms sold during | 
the ‘‘hoom.’’ This is approximately 10 per cent of the farms of the State, but the estimate covers a longer 
period than that given above. 
