Excerpt: Farm real estate in the United States has gained in value in such a degree since the census of 1900 that an examination of the causes of this gain may be not only interesting, but instructive, to the economic student as well as to the practical agriculturist. Inquiries addressed to 45,000 State, county, and township crop correspondents in the autumn of 1905 secured reports which, when properly tabulated, establish the conclusion that at this time, about five years after the census, the real estate of farms, medium in quality and equipment of buildings and improvements, has increased in value 38.5 per cent.