Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1905-05-12
LAND VALUES,

There is thought in the following
from the St. Paul Dispatch, worthy Of
consideration by the owners of idle
land in the Bismarck irrigation pro-
ject-'They give no value to the land
unless they make it produce" The
Dispatch says:
by one of the freaks of circum.
stances that send so much irrelevant
matter to editorial desks the circular
of an owner of vacant farm lands
came our way and escaped the waste
basket, to be first read out of mere
idle curiosity and then to stir reflec-
ton on it's gist, the value of land. The
circular announces that on a date Ger
tain the owner will advance the price
of the land to $3.50 an acre, and he
urges recipients to be alert and make
their purchases before that day. If
they delay he intimates higher price
next year, when he expects to be SELL
ing them for $40 an acre.
''He didn't make these acres. He
couldn't make a cubic inch of them.
He couldn't lessen them. So what
ever value they have is not due to
anything he has done with or upon
them. They are wild acres, just as
nature made them, having only the
potential values coming from their
use and occupation. Unused they
have no value; in fact are liability,
not an asset, for they bring their an.
nual burden of taxes, which must be
met to avoid confiscation by the state.
Their present owner can make them
valuable to him, in real, not imagina-
tive, values, only by going upon them,
reducing them to cultivation and max
ing them bring forth produce needed
by men.
What then makes these lands
worth the $3.50 an acre or the $40 of
prospective price year hence? The
circular artlessly makes answer. Next
year, when he expects to get $40 an
acre, the land won't be any better,
but there will be more settlers, more
schools, more neighbors and more
postoffce,' says the circular. If the
settlers have made this land worth
$3.50 an acre this year the added $3.50
an acre next year will be due, not to
anything their owner has done, but
solely to what other settlers have
done by buying more acres of him,
making farms of them, building
homes, school houses and establishing
postofices. Suppose no settlers come,
then, logically, acres will not be worth
$40 each; will not be worth even the
coming $3.50 an acre; won't be really
worth anything if held vacant, un-
occupied, unused. Il -,
'Then it follows that the value of
land is due to the desire of men to
have it for their use, to occupy 1t, i'm
prove it, extract from its resources
the value nature has stored there; to
make a living out of it. From no
value this desire enhances values I'm.
til, in the densest centers like London
or New York city, the privilege to &C.
cupy sells for millions of dollars an
acre. Whose, then, is all this. increase
OF value? Whose, If not those who
make it? Not theirs who hold, but
will neither use nor sell unless their
price be paid, for they give no more
value to the land than the dog did to
the hay in the Manager which he would
neither eat nor let be eaten. And
after the land has passed into the
hands Of those who occupy and use,
what gives it its value If it be not the
wealth which labor applied to it can
make to produce? i
There are farther lines OF refec.
ton in continuance of these which, If
worked out and applied in the man
agement Of .society's affairs, might
rebound very much to the advantage
OF society in general and its units in
particular. We leave it to our readers
to continue the lines Of thought"
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