18 BULLETIN 1295, U. S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE 
missions allowed on listed property. The most usual commission 
received by agents in northern Minnesota in 1920 was 5 per cent on 
partly improved land and $2 per acre on wild land. Agents for 
some of the large landholders receive as low as $1 per acre, or even 
less on wholesale lots. Dealers, on the other hand, usually try for 
margins of $5 to $10 per acre, although they frequently take much 
less rather than lose a sale. in general it appears that an agency 
alone is not sufficiently profitable in an undeveloped region to justify 
many firms in devoting themselves exclusively to this class of busi- 
ness. The conventional rates are little if any higher than in well- 
developed regions, and on account of the low value of the land the 
unit of sale is small. On the other hand, the expense of selling a 
A4Q-acre tract worth $25 an acre may be as great as for a 160-acre 
farm at $300 an acre in a developed region. 
Wild land is not generally listed exclusively with one agent. When 
it is so listed, the agent is usually a representative of a large land- 
holder and in charge of sales in certain territory. Some of these 
large landholders allow any resident real estate agent to act as agent 
for any of their holdings. In such cases, however, all the agent 
usually does is to secure the buyer, and the landholding company 
handles the actual transaction. Commissions in such cases are small, 
and the only reason the resident agents and agent-dealers handle 
such business is that occasionally they can not satisfy a prospect with 
any other land they have listed or in stock. It can be said, there- 
fore, that considerable land belonging to large landholders is listed 
with many different agents. In Table 9, this “ multiple listing” has 
been excluded as far as possible. 
An agent-dealer always tries first to sell the land he owns or holds 
under option, because margins are usually larger than commissions 
and because profits in dealing depend upon quick turnover. The 
result is that persons anxious to sell their land find that their agents 
are not selling it for them very rapidly, and finally put the price 
~ low enough so that some agent thinks he can see a good margin in it 
by buying it for resale. In this way, many of the small holdings 
are forced to:pass through a dealer transaction before they are sold. 
Large landholders usually adhere to their price schedules rather 
strictly, but even then, some of the agents buy desirable pieces of 
land from them and resell, instead of taking regular commissions. 
However, to be able to satisfy all prospects, a dealer needs to have 
a considerable supply of Jand in stock, more than he can afford to 
carry unless his turnover is rapid or unless he can obtain a consider- 
able portion of it under option. Hence he is giad to supplement his 
actual stock with as many good listings as he can obtain; and every 
once in a while he is forced to draw upon these listings in order to 
induce the prospect to buy. Also, in most cut-over territory there 
are many partly improved farms on the market, and these are likely 
to be listed, for the dealer must have somewhat more capital to 
buy them than is involved in the purchase of wild land. 
VOLUME OF SALES 
Volume of sales in 1919, or the usual volume of sales (sometimes 
both), was reported for 47 of the 70 land-selling agencies for which 
records were obtained in northern Minnesota. Thirty-six firms re- 
