GROUND RENT A SOCIAL PRODUCT 17 Deducting from the total of prices indicated by the footing of the 120 sales .... $7,291,375 Four-thirds of assessed valuation of buildings . 2,772,933 Would give perhaps a fair estimate of what the land sold for ...... $4,518,442 To this it is necessary to add the capitalised tax upon the land for the same year, 1900, $3,758,600 x $14.70 (the number of dollars tax per thousand) x 20 (the number of years’ purchase) ...... $1,105,028 In order to get the gross capitalised ground rental . value of the land ..... $5,623,470 From above it appears that the assessed valuations were only five-sixths of the selling value and two- thirds of the gross value. The figures for 751 rentals of estates were also ob tained from reliable sources and are exhibited in Appen dix H, and from these figures it appears that the assessed valuation of the land ($23,067,800) is five-sixths of the gross value ($31,548,500), as compared with two-thirds obtained from the first set of figures. It is probable, how ever, that these 751 estates are in the aggregate improved to less than one-half of their normal efficiency, and hence the gross income which the land now yields may be considerably less than the true ground rental. If so, then, the gross value of the land, namely, the ground rental capitalized at 5%, is considerably greater than is shown by the figures, and the assessed valuation, therefore, may well be only two-thirds of this gross value and five-sixths of the selling value as in the former case. In the absence of contradictory or correcting testi mony it is fair to ask the reader to accept these lists of 120 sales and 751 estate rentals respectively as an indication that a ratio of five-sixths exists between assessed valuation and selling value.