Farm land values and land transfers in Tennessee

The relationship of land values, land tenure, land policies, and other phases of land economics to important social and economic problems bearing primarily upon agriculture, but at the same time affecting the whole body politic, furnishes at once the need and the justification of careful studies in these fields. This study is intended to bring out some of the economic factors connected with the larger problems of land in Tennessee.

A large volume of data pertaining to farm real estate transfers in Tennessee were collected by the Tennessee Agricultural Experiment Station in cooperation with the Federal Civil Works Administration in 1934. The purpose of this report is to analyze those phases of the data which are most complete and which are thought to be of most significance. It is proposed to study the trend of farm real estate transfers in the various areas of the state and attempt to explain the results obtained from this study; to study the financial arrangements made in the transfer of farm real estate in Tennessee; to ascertain the kind of deed used; to compare voluntary transfers and foreclosure sales as to size of farm and value per acre in the different sections of the state; to determine the ratios of assessed values to sale values in each county of the state; to study the effect on farm real estate values of a number of factors commonly thought of as influencing such values; and to attempt to determine the social and economic significance of the factors studied.