FARMING LOGGED-OFF UPLANDS IN WESTERN WASHINGTON. 21 
sales and purchases by the farmers interviewed, that the values of 
unimproved or wild land increased very little until the period 1904- 
1909. This period shows an increase of $30 per acre, or approximately 
170 per cent, over the previous period. The two following six-year 
periods show increases of $43 and $21, respectively, over the preced- 
ing period. It is therefore not surprising to find that a smaller pro- 
portion of settlers, particularly foreign born, are being attracted to 
the settlement of these lands. 
This large increase in unimproved land values has not held true, 
however, for the greater portion of logged-off lands located in the 
more remote sections, where the growth of the cities and towns had 
little influence upon land values. In some of these sections land 
values have increased but slightly during the past 25 years. The 
land is held largely by timber and lumber companies who are dispos- 
ing of it at from $5 to $25 per acre. Some of these lands are reason- 
ably close to neighbors, schools, roads, towns, and railroads. People 
with very small means are particularly sought as settlers. Small first 
payments are accepted, and the companies generally fix the size of the 
following payments within the settler's ability to pay. One contem- 
plating the purchase of wild land for farming purposes, however, 
should not be too easily influenced by the price until he has consid- 
ered such factors as the quality of the land, availability of water 
supply, amount of land necessary to carry on the desired type of 
farming, proximity to market, the transportation facilities, and, as 
nearly as can be ascertained, the future development of the area. 
It too frequently happens that low-priced land is much more expen- 
sive in the end than higher-priced land. 
Table 17. — Average value of unimproved land at different periods as computed from 
192 transfers. 
Period of sale. 
Number of 
transfers. 
Average price 
per acre. 
Before 1898. . . 
50 
40 
57 
$15. 35 
1898-1903 
18.02 
1904-1909 
48.64 
1910-1915 
21 
24 
91.71 
1916-1920 . 
112.81 
Another significant tendency to be noted in studying Table 15 is 
that an increasing number of settlers are assuming large mortgages 
with their purchases. A larger proportion of the recent settlers are 
native Americans w T ho have been attracted to the land from the ranks 
of the business and professional world. Many of them have had no 
previous experience in farming, but have pictured farming as a pleas- 
ant and profitable business enterprise, capable of paying off a mortgage 
in a very short time. The average mortgage per farm for the 40 farms 
settled between 1915 and 1921 was $1,648, or 41.8 per cent of the 
purchase price. If more of these settlers had an intelligent concep- 
tion of incomes to be expected from farming in this region before 
they decided to buy farms, they might escape much of the effort and 
misery incident to the paying off of large mortgages with small farm 
incomes. 
Table 18 shows that the price which the settlers have accepted for 
their time and effort in preparing wild land for the plow is consider- 
ably less than it would have cost to clear the land at the market rate 
