d States, where
most of the land is worked by its owners, the principle is involved as
fully in the transfer value of farms as it is in countries where land is
almost universally rented for farm purposes, like England and Ireland. It
is simply necessary to remember that the rent question in such a country
as England, where land is seldom transferred from owner to owner (but all
values are expressed in the terms of annual rental), is quite different in
form from the question in our country, where transfer of landed property
is free and common, and the rental is regulated largely by current rates
of interest upon land values. In England, too, the rent question involves
long standing relations between the people and landed proprietors who, for
generation after generation, have been rulers of the people as well as
landlords, and are still the natural magistrates over the renters upon
their estates. Yet the principal occasion for rents in such countries is
exactly the same as that for varying values of land in the United States.
Peculiar intricacies of methods of rent-paying and of terms in leases,
varying with the customs of different countries, have little importance in
the United States, except for comparisons.

The United States afford superior advantages for the study of land values
fairly independent of restrictive laws or customs. The rapid settlement of
wild lands by farmers and the rapid building of cities under free
competition give the fairest illustration of tendencies in land values to
be found in the world. The fact that the government for the past fifty
years has encouraged the settlement of new land at the bare cost of
establishing ownership makes the problem almost as simple as if the
government had no voice in the distribution.

It may be proper to recall the conditions under which any individual has
been able to secure the absolute control of land as a proprietor: First,
by preemption, involving temporary residence until the land is purchased
and patented, at the nominal price of $1.25 an acre, or $2.50 within ten
miles of such railroads as may have been subsidized by a gift of one-half
the land within the same limits. Second, by homestead preemption, by which
any head of a family, present or prospective, can secure 160 acres of land
by payment of certain registration fees, amounting in all to less than $20
upon the average, and making his residence upon the land for a period of
five years. The issue of a