s exclusive
possession struck at the very root of human necessity. At a pinch people
can do without trade or money, but land they must have, even if only to
lie down on and starve. The impoverish, jobless worker, with disaster
facing him, must first perforce give up his precious few coins to the
landlord and take chances on food and the remainder. Especially is land
in demand in a complicated industrial system which causes much of the
population to gravitate to centers where industries and trade are
concentrated and congest there.

A more formidable system for the foundation and amplification of lasting
fortunes has not existed. It is automatically self-perpetuating. And
that it is preeminently so is seen in the fact that the large shipping
fortunes of a century ago are now generally as completely forgotten as
the methods then used are obsolete. But the land has remained land; and
the fortunes then incubated have grown into mighty powers of great
national, and some of considerable international, importance.

It was by favor of these propitious conditions that many of the great
fortunes, based upon land, were founded. According to the successive
census returns of the United States, by far the greater part of the
wealth of the country as regards real estate was, and is, concentrated
in the North Atlantic Division and the North Central Division, the one
taking in such cities as New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, the other
Chicago, Cincinnati and other cities.[70] It is in the large cities that
the great land fortunes are to be found. The greatest of these fortunes
are the Astor, Goelet and Rhinelander estates in the East and, in the
West, the Longworth and Field estates are notable examples. To deal with
all the conspicuous fortunes based upon land would necessitate an
interminable narrative. Suffice it for the purposes of this work to take
up a few of the superlatively great fortunes as representatives of those
based upon land.

VAST FORTUNES FROM LAND.

The foremost of all American fortunes derived from land is the Astor
fortune. Its present bulk, embracing all the collateral family branches,
is estimated by some authorities at about $300,000,000. This, it is
generally believed, is an underestimate. As long ago as 1889, when the
population of New York City was much less than now, Thomas G. Shearman,
a keen student of land conditions, placed the collective wealth of the
Astors at $250,000,000.[71] The stupendous ma