You can ascertain with more or less certainty the annual
return which is obtained, or obtainable, from a particular piece of land for agricultural purposes, because there is a constant demand for the hiring of land by the year. The selling value of a piece of land is absolutely unascertainable over a period of years, and is often the merest of guesses even at a particular moment, so greatly is the demand, and therefore the price, of land affected by varying circumstances. The only really safe and satisfactory way to ascertain the capital value of a piece of land is to put it up to auction and see what people will bid for it. The notion that you have only to turn a Government official into a field, and he will be able to tell you what we may describe as " the howling wilderness" value of that field—i.e., its value when divested of every tree, fence, gate, drain, bank, ditch, and building—is a figment of the Ministerial imagination. He can, of course, make a" shot," but it is a " shot " and nothing more.
Previous page
