U.S.A. LIVE STOCK AND LAND. VALUES.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 273, 18 November 1927, Page 17

U.S.A. LIVE STOCK AND LAND. VALUES.

Taking U.S.A. as a whole, land values have declined since 1920 approximately 30 per cent. Approximately three-quarters of the capital wealth of agriculture is tied up in land values. So that 30 per cent tuns into billions of dollars. There is a very close relationship between live stock and land values. The most drastic reductions have taken place in those regions where fewest livestock are kept, chiefly in the cottonbelt and in the cash grain sections of the I_ pper Mississippi Vallev. Declines were severe throughout the Middle West too, especially so in those sections where farmers depended on wheat and cash corn as the chief sources of their income. In those sections where they depended on livestock declines in land values were not so great. The most fearful declines in land values occurred in the eastern cottonbelt. If we go westward, where the livestock industry is most important, we find that land values have declined less, or in some cases even advanced slightly. The li\estock industry of the State of Texas has been no small factor in maintaining land values on a relatively high plane. In the range States land values have held their own very well, especially in the livestock producing sections. The Pacific Coast and extreme north-western States have likewise maintained values of relati\ely high levels.