The Arkansas Farmer

Time to Buy Good Land

Speaking before the visiting day crowd at the Hope Fruit and Truck Experiment Station last month Dean Dan T. Gray, who is incidentally the owner of a farm as well as dean of the State College of Agriculture, advised young men to buy land now and build for the future. It was Dean Gray's contention that land bought cheaply now and properly farmed would pay a return on the investment and in the years to come would prove a very valuable asset to any young man who loves the country.

Dean Gray's statement seems to be rather forcefully sustained by a recent statement issued by the Federal Land Bank of Wichita, Kan., in which it pointed out that land values have now reached a point to where farmers with proper operating credits can farm the land and make it pay returns. Land, in other words, is about as low in price as it is going to go. The general price of land now is down to only 6 per cent above the average for 1912 to 1914.

While the general level of industrial and railroad stocks has dropped more than 66 per cent in the last two years land had declined in general value by less than eight per cent. Land has declined only 30 per cent from the peak values of 1920 while stocks of course have declined much more than that.

Thus it is safe to assume that inflation has been entirely eliminated from land values and the fellow who gets hold of a good piece of land and can keep it will not only have a good investment but diligent work will make it pay returns on the investment. My advice is to every tenant, every young man who wants to make farming a business in life is to get hold of some dirt and keep it.