Large estate

“ The fate of the corporate estates, thus compulsorily sold, will be that of the thousands of small properties the large estates have of late years swallowed up. Everybody knows that many houses of the gentry of former times are now farm-houses on every large estate. It cannot be otherwise, for this is how a large estate is formed. All the smaller estates in the neighbourhood, just like the meteoric bodies which come at last to be overpowered by the attraction of our planet, must, as things are now, gravitate towards it: their 97end is, sooner or later, generally the former, to fall into it. ”

“ The quantity in market was enormous. All the real-estate agents had large books filled with descriptions of farms and fancy country-seats for sale, some to be had by paying one-fourth of the purchase-money down, and some which the owners would exchange for merchandise, or traps, or houses in the city. ”

“ There is, however, another reason for this habit of mind; namely, that an accumulation of real property is of little use to its owner, unless, together with it, he has commercial power over labour. Thus, suppose any person to be put in possession of a large estate of fruitful land, with rich beds of gold in its gravel, countless herds of cattle in its pastures; houses, and gardens, and storehouses full of useful stores ”

“ Plant, who holds 400 acres, all cleared and enclosed long ago, and exhausted too, at 100 dollars a year rent, offered for sale at fifteen dollars an acre, poor but useful, light, sandy loam, shining bright with silvery mica. He manages this estate without a capital, by the labour of himself, one slave and a boy; he hires none. He has sold Bradford's Rest, a large estate, costing seven dollars, for 20 dollars per acre; well sold!
26th.—I rode this day to the bench of his worship, Squire Arden, with Doctor Dawes, who was served with a warrant for a small debt for goods. ”

“ Co-operative holders of real estate- i.e., hall associations, building and loan associations, and one large church, which has considerable sums in productive real estate- have over half a million dollars invested. ”

“ The value of real estate is increasing in the large cities. The landlords are unwilling to sell unless at an exorbitant price; accordingly, foreigners intending to engage in trade or manufacturing will do well to lease property for long terms, instead of purchasing it. ”

“ The cottages erected by farmers or by landlords are now, one and all, fit and proper habitations for human beings; and I verily believe it would be impossible throughout the length and breadth of Wiltshire to find a single bad cottage on any large estate, so well and so thoroughly have the landed proprietors done their work. ”

“ For if the present large estates were, by the dilapidation of families, to be broken to pieces and sold, others equally great would, in the free circulation of property, speedily accumulate; and the moment any possessor arrived at a certain pitch of fortune, he would probably choose to reside in the better country—near the Parliament, or the Court. ”

“ He can buy an estate, or he can rent a large farm, or rather series of farms. If he purchases a fine estate he must withdraw his capital from business. In the first place, that would be inconvenient to old friends, and even unjust to them; in the second place, it would reduce his income most materially. Suppose we say, not for absolute exactness, but for the sake of present contrast, that capital well invested in business brings in ten per cent. The same capital invested in land brings in, say, three per cent. ”

“ Our system creates the large estates, and endows them with the power of swallowing up the small ones; and so year by year takes the land, more and more, out of the market: the general result being that at last we have come to have only a handful of very wealthy rent-receiving proprietors, and few cultivating proprietors; and that the thoughts, the prospects, and the capital of the richest nation in the world are all pretty completely turned away from the land. ”

“ In estimating the amount of capital invested, the proceeds of sale of the real estate hereby granted to the said mayor, aldermen, and common council, to aid them in the execution of the works hereby required, shall not be included, but the amount of sales of the said property, showing what part thereof shall have been sold, and at what price each part of the said property shall have been sold, shall form part of the said annual report. ”

“ Where a mortgagee is in possession, and the annual rents and profits of the mortgaged estate, exceed the interest of the debt due, it seems that he should pay interest on the surplus rents and profits. ”

“ An ounce of fact is worth a ton of theory, and the clear result of the evidence taken before the Royal Commission was, that on the large estates, the expenditure of capital was the most generous, and the land was best developed by the application of all the improvements of modern science and mechanics. ”

“ The result is, in a few years large estates, as if by magic, are accumulated. The fortunate proprietors then build fine houses, and surround themselves with comforts and luxuries to which they were strangers in their earlier years of care and toil. ”

“ Of course there would be few such large estates as there are now, because that is the result of growth through many generations under the very peculiar circumstances we have been referring to: but if the interchange of land and capital were perfectly free there would be everywhere many considerable estates, though the general order of things might be estates of moderate size, descending to holdings of small extent, which might be the most numerous of all ”

“ And the collector shall render a distinct account of all charges incurred in the sale of such property to the commissioner of internal revenue, who shall, by regulation, determine the fees and costs to be allowed in cases of distraint and other seizures; and the said collector shall pay into the treasury the surplus, if any there be, after defraying the charges.
Sec. 30. And be it further enacted, That in any case where goods, chattels,If personal property is insufficient, real estate may be sold. ”

“ Not only are all large estates broken up and practically dissipated, so that it is to no one's interest to improve his property or spend money on it, but the small farms of the peasant proprietor are broken into smaller fragments in the same way; and it is no uncommon thing to see a field of a few acres divided into six or eight furrows, none of them enough to support one man. ”

“ All these took a prodigious rise in all parts of the Union, and most men mistaking the effect of a redundancy of money for a real rise of price consequent on our increased [Pg 278] population and capital, believed that real estate was the best investment they could make of their money, and purchased it accordingly—looking for remuneration, not to the rent or immediate profit, but to that future rise in value which was inferred from the past. ”

“ You will then sell all your annual increase, and the profits will be greater every year. At the end of ten years from this time, if, as I think probable, you will have had enough of this life, we will sell the estate. By that time it will be the centre of a populous district, the land will be greatly increased in value, and will be equal to any in the country,—so much so, indeed, that it will probably be out of the question to find a purchaser for the whole. ”

“ You are listening to such stuff with the rapture of a lover, and you think that old Mathias, who is not in love, can forget arithmetic, and will not point out the difference between landed estate, the actual value of which is enormous and constantly increasing, and the revenues of personal property, the capital of which is subject to fluctuations and diminishment of income. I am old enough to have learned that money dwindles and land augments. ”

“ There was the house in which they lived, free of mortgage, which would bring at least thirty thousand dollars in the market; ten thousand dollars in bank stocks and other securities—solid, paying investments, and five thousand dollars’ worth of real estate—chiefly unimproved lots in a growing part of the city, that might be very valuable in time, if they could be held and the taxes paid. ”

“ People are now flocking in here in considerable numbers, either to settle or to make investments in real estate, in the hope and expectation [Pg 225] of realizing a fortune by the rise in the value of property. We have dally stages from the east and south, and they generally come loaded inside and out to the extent of their capacity. The land-office is crowded both by settlers and speculators eager to enter the choicest lands remaining unsold. ”

“ A bankrupt is bound to state, upon his schedule, the nature of a debt if it be a fiduciary one. Should he omit to do so, he would be guilty of a fraud, and his discharge will not avail him; but if a creditor, in such case, proves his debt and receives a dividend from the estate, he is estopped from afterwards saying that his debt was not within the law. ”

“ I mean the rent question for the poor, the working people. At the present there is a sad depressing trade all over our country, and even in Europe. Yet, despite this awful depression, I note what is termed real estate is now going up gradually in value. I mean property and land. And that in the midst of this very depression and want of all kinds of labour by our workpeople and manufacturers, and in the midst of a tremendous opposition from our foreign competitors ”

“ The second objection made to the present nearly absolute holding of real estate is that, particularly in America, and in Great Britain during the past century, the growth of population, the advance of manufacturing towns, and general progress in trade and commerce, have had the effect of enormously enhancing the value of land, increasing rents, without owners having given the community any equivalent whatever. ”

“ City real estate was not subject to the extreme fluctuating processes which so disordered the value of rural land. All of the tendencies and currents of the times favored the building up of an aristocracy based upon ownership of city property. ”

“ But what comfort is it to the owner of a small estate, who is reduced to the necessity of selling it for what it will bring—perhaps for some such price as we see recorded in the transactions of the Encumbered Estates Court of Dublin—or to the farmer, who is preparing to carry his family and the remnant of his capital to some other land—or to the labourer, who finds his earnings cut down to 6s. ”

“ In many parts of this country, perhaps in most, but particularly in the Western States and in the neighborhood of flourishing towns, these two methods of rating the pecuniary magnitude of real estate will habitually not coincide. Due allowance, often very considerable, being made, the capitalised rental value of the land may be taken as measuring its current serviceability as an item of material equipment ”

“ For you know the nature of this Cumberland soil,—you, who possess much of it, and have won so many fair acres from the wild; you know that my uncle’s land, now (save a single farm) scarce worth a shilling an acre, needs but capital to become an estate more lucrative than ever his ancestors owned. You know that, for you have applied your capital to the same kind of land, and in doing so, what blessings— which you scarcely think of in your London library—you have effected, what mouths you feed, what hands you employ! ”

“ Much more so is this true when the effort is to ascertain the value of real estate in the country, where sales are few, and where the elements which enter into and determine the value are so varied in character. ”

“ They know that when that day comes it will not be best for them to have their enormous fortunes in such get-at-able property as real estate, in which so many of the legitimately acquired American fortunes are invested. ”

“ I.13 If things were always owned in fee simple, i.e. if there were no division of ownership,—no partnership rights, no shares, and no stock companies,—there would be little practical need to distinguish property from wealth; and as a matter of fact, in the rough popular usage, any article of wealth, and especially real estate, is often inaccurately called a "piece of property." ”

“ The same statement holds for persons who wish to secure land and to employ others as labourers. Large estates on which modern machinery and modern agricultural methods are employed are greatly needed. ”

“ Thus a new estate and property sprung up in the hands of mortgagees, to whom every house and foot of land in England paid a rent-charge, free of all taxes and defalcations, and purchased at less than half value. ”

“ When tired we have taken a look round the estate to see what was growing, learn the shape of it, and its capabilities with more minuteness. It seems to be agreed on all hands, and we have opinions from many practical men, that we have not made a bad exchange, even in the commercial sense, of our cash for land. ”

“ Money was plentiful and easy to borrow, and was invested in all sorts of schemes by which people expected to make fortunes. Millions of acres of the public land were bought and held for a rise in price. Real estate in the cities sold for fabulous prices. Cotton, timber lands in Maine, railroad, canal, bank, and state stocks, and lots in Western towns which had no existence save on paper, all were objects of speculation.
[Illustration: NEW YORK MERCHANT, 1837.] ”

“ The best we had to hope from my older and our only brother George was, that he should join us in paying the interest on the mortgage till real estate should rise,—as everybody said it soon must,—and then the rise in rents should enable us to let the house on better terms, and thus, by degrees, clear it of all encumbrances, and have it quite for our own, to let, sell, or live in. ”

“ The simple and universal Pole keeps an account of the great Wealth and Strength of the Kingdom, the People.
(3.) Rating the Houses per Chimney, gives a good account of Improvements and Dilapidations.
(4.) Excize gives an account of Domestick Expences, and publisheth Exorbitances.
(5.) Land-taxes keep the Payments to the proportion of entire value, not of Annual Rent: So as an Estate in Housing pays no more than if it were in Lands, nor considerable less than Goods, and may bring Mortgages to their just contribution ”