05 per cent.; and in Virginia,
$430,701,082 in 1850, and $793,249,681 in 1860, showing an increase of
$362,548,599, or 84.17 per cent.
By Table 36, p. 196, Census of 1860, the _cash_ value of the farms of
Virginia was $371,092,211, being $11.91 per acre; and of Pennsylvania,
$662,050,707, being $38.91 per acre. Now, by this table, the number of
acres embraced in these farms of Pennsylvania was 17,012,153 acres, and
in Virginia, 31,014,950; the difference of value per acre being $27, or
largely more than three to one in favor of Pennsylvania. Now, if we
multiply the farm lands of Virginia by the Pennsylvania value per acre,
it would make the total value of the farm lands of Virginia
$1,204,791,804; and the _additional_ value, caused by emancipation,
$835,699,593. But the whole area of Virginia is 39,265,280 acres,
deducting from which the farm lands, there remain unoccupied 8,250,330
acres. Now, if (as would be in the absence of slavery) the population
per square mile of Virginia equalled that of Pennsylvania, three fifths
of these lands would have been occupied as farms, viz. 4,950,198, which,
at the Pennsylvania value per acre, would have been worth $188,207,524.
Deduct from this their present average value of $2 per acre, $9,800,396,
and the remainder, $178,407,128, is the sum by which the unoccupied
lands of Virginia, converted into farms, would have been increased in
value by emancipation.
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