Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/766

 746 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

nothing, there is no such thing as decrement. All discussions about increment and decrement are, therefore, mere trifling, and should not be allowed to mislead anyone.

It is of the greatest importance, however, to understand what land is, and in what its value consists — in other words, what rent is paid for. "Land," in a scientific sense, includes every- thing which does not belong to the animal creation and which has not been made or seriously modified by man. What man has made decays ; and therefore it often falls back into the land and becomes an indistinguishable part of land. But so long as it is distinguishable it is not "land," in a scientific sense. For example, man builds a house; and this, although planted in the land, and often perhaps built entirely underneath the surface, is nevertheless not land, but improvement. If abandoned by man, and overgrown, it falls into ruin; it mingles, in its decay, with other fragments of stone and earth ; and it becomes land again. So man ploughs and cultivates a field, sowing it perhaps with grass. Grass which grows purely by nature is part of the land; but grass planted by man, and all improvements in the quality of the land, made by human industry, are not, in strict science or in political economy, part of the land. All this is perfectly simple ; although it requires many words to mike it clear.

The value of land obviously consists in the value of the privi- lege of using it. No man would ever pay rent for land which he was not permitted to use for any purpose. Accordingly, land which can be used for only a limited number of purposes has a comparatively small value; while land that can be used for every conceivable purpose has very great value. This is especially important to bear in mind when considering what are called franchises. The mere franchise to carry on business as a corporation is not land and has no land value. But the so-called "franchise" of running a railroad or extending a tele- graph over land, or of laying gas-pipes or oil-pipes under the sur- face of land, is, in the light of science, political economy, and common sense, a land value, and nothing else. It is not, in any sense, personal property. It is attached to the land ; it is part of the land ; and it would therefore be included, first and