_Variation in land values._--Rents vary in different countries under various customs of those countries, and so land values can be compared only by knowing the customs and laws which influence the transfer of landed property, either by deed or by lease. Differences in value are often due to considerations entirely distinct from production. Farms are homes as well as machines; and the privileges of home life, with all the relations of family, friendship and patriotic associations, may rouse competition that greatly influences the market value of farms. In any community, whatever custom or law hinders competition in farming affects the relative value of farms in productive industry. Peculiarities in the method of holding lands have much to do with their value. The hopes and expectations of the people have large influence. Whatever stimulates enterprise and increases speculative energy enlarges the estimate of land value. Whatever depreciates abilities or discourages enterprise diminishes land value. Whatever encourages permanent improvements and far-sighted plans in farming increases land prices. Whatever discourages the spirit of improvement reduces such prices.
In some of these ways it is possible to account for great differences of value in regions apparently equal in natural advantages. Thus nobody wants lands in Turkey, however fertile, in comparison with lands in a free country like ours. Countries under a poor system of agriculture with inefficient labor cannot maintain high value of land. Ignorance and thriftlessness in a community of laborers operates in the same way. Thus the habits of the people, as well as their laws, enter into the question of rent. In countries where large estates are parceled out to renters, generation after generation, the customary terms of leases as to time, method of payment, adjustment of improvements, restrictions as to methods of tillage, and requirement of capital, enter largely into the question of rents. In some the fear of eviction under arrearages cuts a prominent figure; in others the confiscation of improvements destroys all enterprise. Upon the continent of Europe, in some places, the payment of rent in produce,--what we call working of land upon shares,--greatly limits individual enterprise, though it gives to the land owner a direct control in the methods employed on the land. Restrictions of law or of custom upon transfer of ownership always have the effect of diminishing the general productiveness by hindering the natural competition of productive enterprise. The result of all laws of entail, by which enormous estates are held from generation to generation under control of the same family, is universally deprecated because of its interference with the natural law of supply and demand as to farms and homes. All such restrictions favor the spirit of monopoly and cultivate arbitrary power, which in every way hinders progress.