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262 of why the top was not coming until next year. When the time came, they intended to get out.

Very few saw the basic facts, or took the trouble to think down to them. Nine tenths of the buyers of real estate were purchasing not for use, but to sell at an advance. The same piece of property cannot go on selling and advancing forever. Since most of these purchases were made on a comparatively small payment, it follows that the moment prices should recede, even a little, most of them would have to be thrown back on the market to render possible the payment of the balances due. There had been more town lots sold than could be settled upon in twenty years, even if every available passenger car on all the railroads were to run westward filled to capacity. But back of it all was the hard fact that they were selling climate and scenery, and there was enough of a supply of climate and scenery to break any market in the world.