Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 83.djvu/501

Rh accurate a measure as may be of the extent to which farm land, irrespective of improvements, is increasing in value.

During the decade between 1900 and 1910, the value of all farm lands in the United States increased from $13,058,000,000 to $28,476,000,000—equivalent of 118.1 per cent. Not one of the nine geographical divisions covered by the census shows any decrease in farm land values. The increases, however, vary extremely. The least increase (19.1 per cent.) is shown in the Middle Atlantic States; the greatest increase (313 per cent.) is in the Mountain States. The largest total increase (slightly more than six billions of dollars) occurred in the Middle Western States, which gave a percentage increase of one hundred and fifty-eight.

A further inspection of the figures by states shows that the farm land increases are sectionally rather uniform. For example, in New England three of the states (New Hampshire, Vermont and Massachusetts) have increased between twenty and thirty per cent.; for Connecticut the increase was 37 per cent.; for Rhode Island it was 12 per cent.; and for Maine, 75 per cent. In the Middle Atlantic States, New York shows an increase of 28 per cent.; New Jersey, of 33 per cent.; and Pennsylvania, of 9 per cent. The increase for Pennsylvania is the smallest increase in agricultural land values shown by any state in the country between 1900 and 1910. The increases among the East North Central States vary from 45 per cent. (Michigan) to 104 per cent. (Illinois). In the West North Central States, however, the variation is considerably greater—from 82 per cent. (Minnesota) to 377 per cent. (South Dakota). Of the South Atlantic States, four (Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia) show increases of less than one hundred per cent. In this same class fall Kentucky and Tennessee from the East South Central Group, and Louisiana from the West South Central Group. All of the other Southern States have increases of over one hundred per cent., and Florida (204 per cent.) and Oklahoma (334 per cent.) lead all of the others in their ratios of increase. Among the Mountain and Pacific States, only three show increases in land values of less than two hundred per cent. They were Utah (147 per cent.), Nevada (165 per cent.) and California (108 per cent.). The increase in Montana was 130 per cent.; in Idaho, 319 per cent.; in Colorado, 301 per cent.; in New Mexico, 470 per cent.; and in Washington, 421 per cent.

The total increase in the value of farm land from 1900 to 1910 for the whole United States was fifteen and a half billions of dollars, more than thirteen billions of which is credited to the territory lying west of Pennsylvania, north of the Mason and Dixon Line and west of the