proud property owners................

 The Peasantry:  Many of them in 1789, were still day laborers or sharecroppers, working other men's land; but by 1793 half the soil of France was owned by peasants, most of whom had bought their acres at bargain prices from the confiscated properties of the Church; and all but a few peasants had freed themselves from feudal dues.  The stimulus of ownership turned labor from drudgery into devotion, daily adding to the surplus that built homes and comforts, churches and schools—if only the taxgatherer could be propitiated or deceived.  And taxes could be paid with assignats—government paper money—at their face value, while products could be sold for assignats multiplied a hundred times to equal their nominal worth.  Never had the French earth been so zealously and fruitfully tilled.

     This liberation of the largest class in a now classless society was the most visible and lasting effect of the Revolution.  These sturdy providers became the strongest defenders of the Revolution, for it had given them the land, which a Bourbon restoration might take away.  For the same reason they supported Napoleon, and for fifteen years gave him half of their sons.  As proud property owners they allied themselves politically with the bourgeoisie, and served, throughout the nineteenth century, as conservative ballast amid the repeated paroxysms of the state.

-Will & Ariel Durant, The Age of Napoleon 

Fun with statistics.........................

Growing strawberries in California is 9796% more profitable than growing corn in the Midwest, Gladstone Land said, in the latest evidence of underperformance in row crop land.

"A farmer with 10,000 acres in corn in the Midwest would only need approximately 143 acres of strawberry ground in California to generate the same amount of revenue," Gladstone said.


9796% is a lot.  But seriously meaningless.  First, are we talking revenue or net income?  Should our steadfast Midwest farmer with 10,000 acres convert to strawberries?    If you will watch this YouTube video you will note that this berry farmer in California, with several hundred acres of strawberries, employs 1,200 people. That's a lot of people.  Think that is practical for 10,000 acres of berries?

The top three states for growing strawberries (California, Florida, and Oregon) have about 50,000 total acres dedicated to strawberry growing.   Just to put that in context, the Oracle Google reports:  Corn acres planted is estimated at 91.6 million acres, down 4 percent from last year, representing the lowest planted acreage in the United States since 2010. Soybean area for harvest is estimated at a record high 84.1 million acres, if realized, up 7.4 million acres (11 percent) from 2013.Jun 30, 2014.

Farming can be a tough business, but what business isn't?  Give row crops their due.  They are providing sustenance for a nation.

via

the utmost stretch of human sagacity.........

"A moment's reflection must convince you of two things:  first, that lands are of permanent value;  that there is scarcely a possibility of their falling in price, but almost a moral certainty of their rising exceedingly in value.  And secondly, that our paper currency is fluctuating, that it has depreciated considerably, and that no human foresight can, with precision, tell how low it may get, as the rise or fall of it depends on contingencies which the utmost stretch of human sagacity  can neither foresee nor prevent."
- as excerpted from an October 12, 1778 letter George Washington wrote to his stepson.

More of the story....................................

George Washington loved land.  Born into the landed gentry, he became a county surveyor at the age of 17.  He must have been a good saver,  because at age 20 he bought some 1,500 acres of wilderness in western Virginia.  It was the first of his many land acquisitions on the "frontier."  Among the problems of buying wilderness land were finding it, keeping track of it, and keeping other people from squatting on it.  Washington was diligent on all three counts.
     Here is a story that was left out of most of the history books:  George Washington and the Covenant Squatters.   Here is an excerpt:

On September 20, 1784, thirteen of the farmers who had been squatting on Washington's lands for the previous twelve years, met with the general at the home of Reed. After Washington again insisted he held title to the land, they announced that they would be willing to buy the land from him outright. They made clear to the general that they were not conceding that he owned the land, but had no desire to engage in a long and nasty dispute - a dispute they well knew Washington could win.

Washington said he would accept no less than twenty-five shillings an acre, paid in three annual installments, with interest. Otherwise, they could sign a 999-year lease. These were stiff terms. None of the thirteen squatters was interested in the lease. When they asked Washington if he would sell the land at his asking price over a much longer period of time and without any interest, he refused, at which point they formally declared that they did not recognize his ownership.

Here's an unexpected sentence.........................

Here are the results of a NAHB survey released today: Shortage of Lots Slows Housing Recovery 
-Calculated Risk

Tell them to stop by, we have an ample supply of fabulous building lots on hand.

33 Guidelines for investing in real estate......

Guideline #23:   There is a lot of land.

Some lessons are learned harder than others.  Value is derived from use (Guideline #4), location (Guideline #5), and difficulty of replacement.  Look at Google Earth sometime.  Vacant  land suitable for development is anything but scarce in this part of the world.  If you invest in land, be prepared to be very patient.

Trying (hard) to make sense of it all..............

Victor Davis Hanson rambles on a bit about the state of agriculture, land values, real estate cycles, cynicism vs optimism, immigration, and California.  The man always has an interesting point of view and can cover a lot of ground in a hurry. VDH asks the question, "Does anyone still believe in the old idea of labor laboris gratia?"  I'd say he does.  A few excerpts:

Central California is also a magnet for very rich Punjabis. Their three-story gated castles of 6,000 square feet are suddenly commonplace. For every copper-wire thief, there is an immigrant agribusiness man who smiles and says: “No problem. I just got more barbed wire, more video cameras, more lights” — such an impressive confidence so characteristic of the immigrants who have always energized America.

The Sikh community arrives with capital, English, and education — and wishes to become even richer, better spoken, more highly educated, and more successful. In this nexus, land is not just a wise investment, but immediate proof of visible, tangible success, in the manner of the old idea of a landed aristocracy.

So California is both more poorly managed than any time in its past, more divided between rich and poor, more fragmented by opportunistic ethnic identity politics, more impoverished by massive illegal immigration — and never more naturally wealthy. The other day I drove through the verdant Central Valley on Manning Avenue. Each acre I zoomed by is producing thousands of dollars in global profits. At I-5, I looked out at fracking country, before descending into the land of Facebook, Google, and Apple — all on mostly poor roads, with terrible drivers and third-world public rest stops, and now and then passing inferior schools.

California may be in awful financial, social, civic, and political shape — but it is far, far from broke.

OK, people...............................

It is time to buy.  Interest rates can hardly get much lower.  Home builders are starting to get busy.  And, have I told you lately, we have some beautiful wooded building lots for sale.

as always, thanks Bill for the chart