808 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts, and Letters. 
seriously affect the total result, though it must he admitted that 
the chance for error in the individual towns is very consider¬ 
able. 
The total value of all the right of way in the state was finally 
placed at about $25,500,000. Of this amount, $2,977,941, or 
less than 12 per cent, is given as the value of right of way 
through cities and villages with populations of less than 10,000. 
The average price of right of way through these cities and vil¬ 
lages was found to be $421 per acre, which would be $80 to 
$100 for an ordinary building lot. This value would not seem 
to be excessive when one considers that the towns were all above 
500 population and that care was taken to omit from consider¬ 
ation all towns where the road does not run into the town. 
Right of Way through Larger Cities. 
For the larger cities, the scarcity of sales near the right of 
way and the high value of the property involved made it neces¬ 
sary to seek for some method different from the one just 
described. The method used was devised by Mr. John Marston, 
Jr., engineer inspector for the state board of assessment, who 
was placed in charge of the work for the larger cities of the 
lake counties and the Fox river valley. The method was as 
follows: 
The assessed value of all the land, exclusive of improve¬ 
ments, 13 lying within one block of the right of way was deter¬ 
mined for both sides of the road. This was reduced to assessed 
value per acre for sections not exceeding two blocks in length. 
The arithmetic mean of the figures on the two sides of the right 
of way was then taken and the result used as a sort of “assessed 
value of the right of way.” The aggregate of the considera- 
i3With the exception of the city of Milwaukee, the assessed value of 
the land had to be of date 1900 or later, as prior to that date the 
values of the land and of the improvements were not separated by the 
assessors. Some confusion and doubtless considerable inaccuracy 
arose from the fact that for some cities the assessments for the years 
1900, 1901 and 1902 differed sharply, owing to the efforts of the state 
board of assessment to have all real property of the state assessed 
at something like its full value. 
