Skinner—Appraisal of Railroad Property. 807 
village or city into smaller sections, so that a relatively large 
number of sales of property of a given class would not deter¬ 
mine the acre value for the whole right of way through the cor¬ 
porate limits. The field inspectors were directed to note care¬ 
fully the physical conditions in such cases. 
The most serious difficulty, however, arose from the fact that 
the recorded consideration includes, of course, the value of the 
improvements upon the property, and in most cases the value 
of the improvements far exceeds the value of the naked realty. 
The only method of solving the problem thus presented that 
seemed at all feasible was to find from the later assessment 
rolls the assessed value of the improvements 11 and to separate 
the consideration into two parts having the same ratio that the 
assessment upon land bore to that upon the improvements. 
This was unsatisfactory at best, the effect being, in cases where 
the consideration was the true one, to increase the value of the 
land, since there is a strong tendency on the part of assessors 
to place the greater part of the assessment upon the land. 12 
In cases where the recorded consideration differed from the 
true consideration, the method would lead to serious errors. 
The evidence turned in by persons who were asked to esti¬ 
mate values contiguous to a railroad right of way through a 
small city was of very doubtful value. This is clearly shown 
by the figures given by three of the most reliable real estate 
men of the city of Madison for the acre value of the land 
contiguous to the right of way of the Illinois Central railroad 
through the city. These estimates were approximately $1,000, 
$2,000 and $3,000 per acre. As a matter of fact, the value as 
determined by sales was not far from the middle figure. 
With the best efforts of the appraisers, this part of the work 
remained the most unsatisfactory of all that was undertaken. 
Fortunately, its relative importance was such that it could not 
ii For a number of years, the city of Milwaukee has required its as¬ 
sessors to assess the land and improvements separately. Since the 
year 1900, this has been done for all real property in the state. 
i2lt would be difficult to prove this statement, but to one who has 
examined many such assessments the evidence seems almost conclu¬ 
sive. 
