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determining factor in cost must have just this result of progressive 
inflation. 
But why should we assume that an advance in prices would 
automatically produce a rise in land values? Why might not 
the farmers take the higher prices and enjoy their benefits while 
leaving land values undisturbed? Because a semispeculative 
attitude toward land ownership is deeply ingrained in the farmer’s 
mind, especially in the corn and wheat belts, where discontent is 
now most rife. That land will rise has long been an article of 
faith with him. It has been so ever since the first settlement. 
What lured the pioneers was not merely cheap land, but cheap 
land that would become dear in time. The actual product of 
pioneer farming was never an adequate reward for the pioneer’s 
labor and hardships. He relied on the unearned increment to 
supplement his current rewards. When he sold his farm, the 
price he received was not as a rule too high, if he merited 
fair compensation. But it was too high from the buyer’s 
point of view, unless he could count on a further rise. And so 
of the price paid by the next buyer, and the next, down to 
present time. 
Our western agriculture has in effect been subsidized by 
unearned increment. Without this subsidy agricultural develop- 
ment, would have proceeded at a much slower pace. We should 
not have flooded the industrial cities and Europe with cheap food. 
Perhaps a slower development would have been sounder. But 
we cannot go back and revise the facts of history. 
When we find that land in Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, Kansas 
and the Dakotas is held at a price that represents a capitaliza- 
tion of its earnings at three per cent or less, we may be sure that 
the belief that land will go on rising is still vivid in the com- 
munity mind. An artificial raising of prices of farm products 
would result in the validation of this belief. Land would rise and 
in the consequent boom immense areas would change hands. 
The volume of mortgages would increase, and the willing fields 
would have to reconcile themselves to steadily increasing indem- 
nity charges. 
THE FARMERS’ INDEMNITY 
Some readers will instantly conclude that the one and all 
sufficient remedy for this deep seated malady is the Single Tax.