Page:A History of the Pacific Northwest.djvu/302



gain, so far as the farmer is concerned. Of course it is a fruitful source of gain to the speculative land buyer and especially to the dealer in farm lands.

Causes of social value. The primary cause of the rise in the social value of lands here, as elsewhere in the United States, is the disappearance of the free lands. Hitherto these regulated the value of the farm lands, permitting only such advance as was justified usually by the cost of improvements plus the original expense of securing title. Thus, in the case of Oregon, the value of farm lands and buildings averaged $6.58 per acre in 1850, when 30.7 per cent of farm land was improved; $13.50 in 1880 with 52.2 per cent improved; $16.75 '^^ 1890 with 50.9 per cent improved; and $13.14 in 900 with 3.3 per cent improved. But, in 1910, with only 36.6 per cent of the lands improved, the value per acre had gone up to $38.98.^

This movement of values, since 1850, corresponds closely to the movement of farm values in the United States as a whole. Until 1900 the influence of free lands effectually prevented the general rise in farm land values. The disappearance of free lands during the two decades 1890 to 1910 removed the natural regulator of values with the result that in ten years time they were more than doubled. In 1900 the average for land and buildings was $19.3 per acre, while in 1910 it was $39.5.

Speculation in farm lands. A secondary cause of social values in the Northwest has been an

1 In Washington it was $48.84, and Idaho $46.38.