Page:Walter Renton Ingalls - Wealth and Income of the American People (1924).pdf/105

Rh land, $45.55. The average value of all lands, improved and unimproved, was therefore $58.22.

According to the Bureau of the Census the total value of all the agricultural land as of Jan. 1, 1920, was $54,903,453,925, which works out to an average of $57.45 per acre, or a little less than what the Department of Agriculture had estimated in 1916.

The great totals quoted from the last census, which loom very large in comparison with the totals for 1910 have been characterized as reflecting the results of inflation. I do not think that is so, for farming land values had been steadily increasing previous to the war, which was a consequence of the natural increase that had been taking place through scarcity and growing population. Confirmation of this view is to be found in the fact that the census average for Jan. 1, 1920, is a little lower than the estimate of the Department of Agriculture for 1916, which estimate was made at a time before inflation had become a prominent factor. On this subject, George E. Roberts, Vice-president, National City Bank, recently said the following:

“The population of the world is steadily increasing, and the best and most available lands of this continent and of all continents are occupied. We have come no- where near the limits of food production in this country, but we have come to the end of the cheap and easy increase. The free lands are gone, the cheap lands are gone, and the increase of the future must come from lands that require considerable investment of capital for irrigation, for drainage, for clearing, and by more scientific methods of culture.

“It is in competition with lands of that character that the lands of the Middle West have gone to $200