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THE A B C OF TAXATION 
In other words, upon every $1,000 unimproved or 
site value of his land— 
The farmer pays on fa, 500, or two and a half times the 
actual value, say at fao a thousand, a tax of f 50 
The villager pays on $400 which is 40 per cent, of the 
actual value, at |ao a thousand |8 
Under the single tax each would pay the same. 
Should the Farmer Be Taxed on Fertility 
No one questions that, after the natural exhaustion 
by cropping of original capabilities of the soil, fertility 
becomes a matter of individual improvement. But of 
original fertility itself it may be said that: 
On the surface of the globe are countless varieties of exhaustible 
fertility, i. e., chemical constituents, differing in kind and degree, 
from the nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon of the soil to the 
carbon of the coal and the diamond. Fertility is not an attribute of 
agricultural land alone. Economic fertility belongs equally to any 
other land which yields to labour its product, whether in food, min 
eral, or metal. Land may be fertile in wheat, corn, and potatoes. 
It may be fertile in cotton, in tobacco, or in rice. It may be fertile 
in diamonds, in gold, silver, copper, lead, or iron. It may be fertile 
in oil, coal, or natural gas, in water power or water front. The value 
of artificial fertility is an improvement value. The value of natural 
fertility of any kind is a site value. 
This view appears to be a welcome simplification of 
the problem, and greatly to the benefit of the farmer, 
because in the assessment of his taxes the element of 
fertility may be disregarded, thus reducing the basis 
of his assessment to that of his urban neighbor, viz; 
site value alone. 
Since, then, the farm land of Massachusetts, as already 
shown, accounts for only one-tenth of the assessed