The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-06-23

, the real estate business. The partner
 bought land down close to the, battery and held it; Astor bought and sold oyer
 and over again. buying ahead of the march of progress and selling In it's,
 wake. Each made his millions. but As- tor made ten millions where his partner made one million.
 The purchase of land for the ss tablishment of parks Is regarded by some as an unwise expenditure of pub lie funds. But entirely aside from the incalculable benefits derived from the creation of these breathing places. parks represent good investments. Gen. traI Park. New York. cost the city. together with the improvements put on
 1t. s15.000.000. Counting interest on the investment. it's cost today would
 represent $60,00oi000. Yet realty men
 close out it's holdings in Central Park,
 $2o0, 000, 900 could be realized there- from In every other city of the
 country the same principle obtains.
 Sometimes the spirit of speculation
 changes the entire trend of city's growth. Nowhere else in the world is
 this better exemplified then in Wash ington. There is no section of the Na- tionai Capital more admirably situated for residential purposes than Capitol
 Hill. The Capitol was made to front in
 that direction. The Goddess of Liber- LI
 founders of the city thought the trend
 of growth would be in that direction.
 But the speculator got possession or
 the land there. and 1t was held at what then seemed such fabulous prices that
 the tide Of growth was forced back Into the less .desirables directions. The railroads have been among the EreAtests factors in the developn1eMt of real estate values in the United States.
 When the first railroad was built in
 America the extent of the continental
 territory was of the United States two- -
 thirds of what it Is at present. and ai-
 though billions of dollars worth of nat
 ural resources have been taken of the
 earth and out of it's bosom since thens
 that part of the United States Is now
 worth more than sixteen times as much
 as it was then seyentY-hye years ago. A fair estimate of what railroad means to community may be reached in another way. Suppose a new line of road is huilt into an undeveloped.
 section of country, and that the result Ing enhancement of land values.
 amounts to only ten dollars per acre
 for five miles on either side of the road On that basis every mile of railroad
 built would result in an increase of $64.000 in real estate values. Compare this with the cost of the average mile
 of railroad in the United States and Canada, and 1t will be foundSthat even
 on this basis community gets direct benefit equal to the cost of building railroad through 1t, to say nothing of the indirect benefits conferred. The k yInterstate Commerce Commission fig-
 ures that the average mile of railroau is capitalized at $65.0o0. It will be seen. therefore. that If there Is any over-capitalization in the railroads, their actual cost is less than the en-
 hancement of values directly resulting | from their construction. hA AA .gab
 railroads increase realty values, ana
 Is now aiding in the building of hun dreds of miles of line into undeveloped territory. She is making steel raf1s | the advance agent of civilzation,n and | expects to reap golden harvests of if- creased taxable values. She is getting l thousands of the best citizens of the | United States, and they are taking
 with them millions of dollars of wealth. | Incomes derived from real estate
 vary very remarkably: Tn some cases
 it goes into the hundreds of thousands ! per acre, as in the skyscraper, ana
 from that to nothing. Most cities place
 the net income from business property
 at from four to seven per cent It' 1 must be remembered, however, that this takes no account of enhancement
 of values, which sometimes amounts to
 more than the net Income from rents <
 The average annual savings of the
 people of the United States amounts to
 something over $S0 year. as shown | by the increases fin wealth. More
 than half of this comes from the en- hancement of real estate. Statisticians | figure that the forthcoming census will
 show an increase of wealth of &400 1in- crease per capita during the, present I decade.
 Copyright. 1909. by Frederic J. Haskin.)
 | RoI.f he