Excerpt from Two Prize Essays on the Adaptation of Land of Afforestation: The Worshipful Company of Carpenters

Great Britain are used for agriculture in some shape or form, while an additional unreturned area exists in the form of small holdings of an acre or less in extent.

It is obvious that the great difference in determining the value of these two classes of ground lies in the fact that the value of the one depends upon its situation, and that of the other upon its productive capacity or soil fertility. For building purposes it matters little whether the soil consists of sand, gravel, loam, or clay, except so far as they affect the facilities for drainage and the water supply. But in any case the fertility of the surface soil is a mere detail which need only be taken into account at the time of its initial transfer ence from the rural into the urban category. When once built over, the ordinary agricultural distinction between good, bad, or indifferent soil vanishes, and the one is practically as valuable as the other.

But 1n the case of agricultural land, the degree of natural fertility of surface soil 15, other things being equal, in direct proportion to its value. This value finds its everyday expression in the term rent, which may vary from 5 per acre in the case of exceptionally rich pasture ground or land in the vicinity of large towns, to 23. 6d. Per acre on poor or elevated hillsides. A great deal of this rent is of course simply interest on capital expended in the original reclama tion, fencing, and draining of the land, the erection of buildings, and the provision of roads, water supply, &c. But the difference which exists between the amount of this interest (if the true amount can be ascertained at the present day) and the actual rent obtained, has a more or less close relation to the natural surface fertility, which remains comparatively constant from one generation to another, unless abused or modified by human agency. An' 1ncrease of population, for instance, may convert a naturally poor and low-rented soil into a more valuable one, not merely on account of the greater demand for it, but because the elements of artificial fertility in the shape of manure become more abundant and more easily applied. Depopulation, on the other hand, may exercise an influence in the other direction. But probably the greatest factor in altering the agricultural value of land within the last fifty years has been the reduction in the price of corn in general, and wheat in particular. The general effect of this reduction has been a relative appreciation in the value of pasture land, and a corresponding depreciation in that of arable, although this has been to some extent counteracted by a general depreciation of all agricultural land.

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