Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1919-04-11
Georgia's Land Values:
H0qU to Enhance Them

"a WORLD of cheering augury as we'll
~ as substantial achievement is revealed
Il - in the fact that the average value of
Georgia pillow land is thirteen dollars higher
now than it was three years ago. On March
1, 1916, according to the National Depart
ment of Agriculture, that value stood at TWEEN
ty-four dollars acre; on the same GATE OF
1917 it was twenty-seven dollars an acre; in
1918, twenty-eight dollars and on March 1,
last thirty-seven dollars. This record ap-
pears the more significant in light of the
further fact that during the same period
there has been little or no increase in the
farm land values of New England and the
Pacific region. In parts of the country,
where intensive development has been
pressed over much longer period and under
easier conditions than in the Southeast,
land prices are much higher than here. But
Georgia and her neighbor States have the
substantial assurance that their largest
prosperity lies futureward and that they are
moving vigorously toward it.
It is WELL nevertheless, for us to take
notice that notwithstanding the marked in
crease in our plow land values In recent
wears, we are still far behind the common
country in this respect. For the United
States as whole the average value OF
such land on March 1, 1919, was seventy
four dollars and thirty-one cents an acre,
or twice that for Georgia; whilst for llll-
nois it was one hundred and forty-four
dollars an acre and for Iowa-which tops
the list-one hundred and sxty-nine dol
lars What is the true import OF these hg-
ures? What do they signify to investment
seekers and home-seekers from other re-
gions? What incentives and what oppor-
tunities do they bear for Georgians them
selves?
AS for investors and home-seekers, it is
obvious at the outset that Georgia land
which is at once far cheaper and far more
fertile, and as regards great market centers'
cifI cd han n
of much of the West, is far the better bar
gain If it is shorter on development, 1t
is longer in opportunities. In point OF
natural endowment, the average OF Georgia
pillow land is very much above the average
of the country as a whole. 1t has larger
store and wider diversity of plant food,
a longer growing season, richer variety
of climate, a happier exemption from ex-
tremes both of heat and cold and OF drouth
and rain, kindlier concordance of all those
conditions that make for agricultural pros
perity Assuredly, then, the man who buys
land of this character and this promise at
an average of thirty-seven dollars an acre
Just half the price of the common country S
decidedly lower average of quality-shoWs
sagacity that is certain of reward. And, as
might be expected numbers of owners IN
other regions are disposing of their farms
there and transferring the investment to
Southern States
The present average of thirty-seven dol
lars an acre is exceeded, of course in hun
dreds of Georgia instances, fifty and sixty
dollars an acre being frequent, and one
hundred dollars an acre by no means rare.
1t cannot be denied, however, that in the
main Georgia pillow lands are egregiously
low-priced as compared with those of New
England or of the Middle West or of the
Pacific section. Why does this happen to be
the case. and what can be done to advance
the market value Of these fertile acres to a
figure nearer their intrinsic worth?
satisfactory answer to the second ques-
ton, which is the practical and important
one, will dispose of the first. Let us build
the best system of inter-county highways
that money and engineering skill can pro-
duce: let uS expand and pc, tect our public
school system until it is the peer o. su
perior of any in the nation; let remove
every obstacle and reinforce every advan
tage to the development of our truly won
derful resources for live stock raising let
US foster the spirit of cooperation in al
things pertaining to the common interest
so that farmers will no longer labor in the
weakness of individualism but with the
strength that is ever born of unity, and sc
that there may NO longer be any feeling
of strangeness O" indifference between ur
ban and rural districts but cordial CO
working for the common goOd-let these
things be done, let this spirit be cultivated
and Georgia farm lands will double, treble
and quadrupIe in value. More than that
the prosperity of the whole Commonwealth
will be quickened and multiplied, for in
State so basically agricultural as Georgi;
the upbuildng of farm interests means thu
enhancement of all.
T1xn1n, ~ M o1|4h