Page:The truth about the railroads (IA truthaboutrailro00elli).pdf/167

owners of the securities representing the Northern Pacific road, $423,000,000, owned by nearly 25,000 people, $16,290 to the individual owner,—not very much more than the value of the average farm in North and South Dakota. (A recent governmental valuation fixed the value of the road at $488,000,000, or $65,000,000 more than the capital outstanding.) The value of North Dakota’s farms and buildings in 1910 was $822,035,000, an increase of 314 per cent in ten years. In South Dakota the total was $1,005,080,807, an increase of 356 per cent in a decade. In Minnesota farm land and buildings were worth $1,259,510,000, an increase in the same period of 88 per cent. These figures show how rapidly farm values have advanced as a result of energetic farm development and improvement, coupled with cheap rail transportation, permitting distribution of farm products to many markets. In 1909 the wheat crop of these three states alone had a value of $216,647,000. The wealth-production of the farms of the United States has increased from $5,017,000,000 in 1900 to