Year: 1878

| by recent sales. There are occasional re-
ports OF this kind from other quarters; and
we have no doubt that where men want
piece of real estate and the owners know
it the price asked and paid is often good
enough. For the present, however. there
is more demand for productive farms IN
different parts Of the country, than for city
property; and the people who have sold the
most real estate-barring of course the
grant railroad companies, some OF whom
have done handsome business 1t may be
said without exaggeration that not incon-
siderable part Of our population has IN the
last five years removed from cities to the
country to engage in agriculture, and this
is one Of the best results of the industrial
depression. There is nowhere in this coun-
try now any speculative demand for real
estate; but the number Of sheriffs' sales
seems to be diminishing; the dreary list OF
foreclosures which Western as we'll as East
ern city journals for long time gave Is
shortened Of late; and here and there we
notice evidences that capitalists are quietly
making purchases at the present low rates,
evidently with hopeful view Of the future
and with practical purposes.


All this should not encourage the merely
speculative holders, for their turn will not
come for a good while yet. The people
who, for year or two to come, and perhaps
for longer time, will buy real estate are
people who want homes, and they will buy,
he hrt in 1afC OF I'D ta
prices. So far as New York is concerned
the building Of the elevated roads will give
healthful impetus to the settlement OF the
upper part Of the island, which property
owners there can easily check by raising
prices beyond the means or the expecta-
I! tions of the class who will seek pleasant
| suburban homes tor their families, and
who expect to get half acre or acre plots
conveniently placed at moderate rates.
Real estate owners in the upper end
of the island and the lower end Of West
chester county would be wise if they COM
bined to keep down prices and to offer ia
vorable inducements to men of moderate
means to buy and build. Merely specula-
tive building would be blunder; but who
ever offers half acre lots at moderate rates
to buyers who will guarantee to build
for their own use, and is able at the
| same time to offer small loans on mortgage
to such buyers to help them make
their improvement, will probably secure
safe and good returns Business has set
tied down to pretty solid basis
now, and considerable number of people
of small means and moderate incomes
are laying by money and would like to
live outside of the crowded parts Of the
city. Thousands of such people have in
past times gone to New Jersey; other thou
sands will prefer the upper part of New
York Island if the rapid transit roads are
completed and we'll managed, and if the
owners of real estate in that region take
| pains to attract them.


| The prices of real estate are undoubtedly
low, but there can be no general rise until
there has been great revival of business.
| Land is notoriously the last to feel the
| stimulus of general rise in prices and
we shall see all manufactures go up, and all
labor employed, and q new era Of specula.
tive activity far en- the way before we see
| such a rise in real estate as too many
holders are impa.iently waiting for. In
the meantime there is going on q
healthful and necessary redistribution of
the population thousands of families
who were drawn to cities by and dur
| ing the era of imitation and speculation
have learned by disastrous experience
that the safest refuge, on the whole, for in
dustrious people is on the land. The best
class of mechanics and artisans are thus
drafted off to the land, where they can bring
up their families without the constant fear
Of lack of employment and consequent
| poverty. The cities of the United States
which made so enormously rapid a growth


during the war and for long period SUBJ
sequent will not increase at nearly the
same rate in the next ten years but it is
probable that their growth will be sounder.
Instead of filling up, as in other years they
have done, with merchants who are deter
mined to undersell every one else, at the
risk of running themselves, embarrassing
| their creditors and combining to cause gen.
eral distrust instead Of being infested by
ten times as many spectators Of one sort
| and another as the business outlook will
Justify, these cities and towns will grow In
| importance and genuine strength as CEN
tres of more thickly populated agricultural
| districts, the demands and supplies from
which will constitute variety of trade
which is always legitimate and therefore
always tends to enrich those who conduct
it. Town lots may not rise materially, for
nearly the whole population Of the world
would be required to occupy all the "lots"
that are being held for better prices in the
United States but increase OF business in
productive property-which town lots never
are Will more than make up for the delay
of the long expected but reluctant rise.