In proof of the above affirmation, the _Standard_ has made the following calculation: Let us suppose an expense of 6s. 5d, per acre for the expenses of sowing and cultivating an acre of soil (including sowing it with lucerne at £2 per cwt.), it follows that the acre costs from £1, 3s. to £1, 8s., and the square league of 6175 acres (representing the work of eighteen months) about £7920. Adding £880 for fencing and watering, we find the price of the square league (9.648 square miles) amounts to some £8800.
What, according to the _Standard_, is the profit to be drawn from this square league? It will fatten some 4500 head of three-year-old cattle, which may be bought at £4, 8s. per head, and seven months later sold at £7, 18s. 6d.; this will give a profit of £3, 10s. 6d. per head, or a gross profit of £15,862. Deducting £7040[59] for expenses (allowing freight to the extent of 10s. 6d. per head), there remains a net profit of £8800 per league per annum, or 100 per cent. on the outlay. If such are the results to be obtained from the transformation of an uncultivated tract of land into a lucerne pasture, it is not surprising that rural property is so quickly attaining so high a value.
[Footnote 59: Apparently made up of half the cost of the lucerne pasture, plus freight and labour; as two sets of beasts can be fattened in a year or a little over.——[TRANS.]]
In the case of quebracho——a very hard wood which is useful for building and constructive purposes, and from which an excellent tannin can be obtained——matters are much the same. Having had experience of the large profits to be derived from the manufacture of quebracho extract, and the splendid dividends paid by the companies engaged in the work, men or business, anxious to invest their capital to advantage, hastened to acquire forests of quebracho, with the result that the price of such land suddenly rose to a level hitherto undreamed of. Tracts situated in the Chaco——a region where quebracho abounds——which were selling a year previously for £88 the square league of 9648 square miles, rose in price to £880, and this latter price can by no means be considered as a definite maximum.
What is true of lucerne and quebracho is also, though on a much smaller scale, true of linseed or wheat, when after an abundant harvest the land-owner or farmer procures the requisite capital for the purchase of the land he has been cultivating and pays a good price for it. There are here elements which confound all calculations made in advance, and make it difficult to fix even an approximate value on the soil.